Mutualistic... Pests? (CW: bugs!)

[lydamorehouse]

Prompted by a comments discussion about the brown spots on my herbs this year, I went out this morning and did a little investigating.

I trimmed off the most affected areas, and while doing so came across this little fellow:


If you look down by my fingers you will see a yellow and black stripped bug, the culprit.

A Google search led me to identify this cheerfully-colored insect as a " four lined plant bug." Apparently when entomologist get lazy, this is what they come up with. It's scientific name is poecilocapsus lineatus. Even Wikipedia doesn't have much to say about it other than, "it is considered a pest." The University of MN's extension office, which pretty much hates to tell people to us pesticide, said, "...go ahead and spray these little f*ckers!" (I MAY be paraphrasing.)  Though, they did suggest using organic things, like soap,  since, you know you might want to eat some of the non-blighted oregano at some point. Their other advice was, "...come fall, burn it to the ground..." (again, may be a slight paraphrasing, though they do suggest cutting everything way back and composting it.)

While I was out inspecting that, I came across something else in my garden: ants aphid farming.

This is a "mutualistic" relationship that I remember learning about in biology class, but I'm not sure I'd ever seen before in real life (tm).


Image: a photo of ant "cowgirl" tending and herding her aphids on my apple stump/tree

This is something I should probably do something about? But, these ants have set up their aphid farm on a plant that I care only minimally about. It's an apple tree that has self-bonsai'd over the years and is a tiny shrub in the center of our garden. I have considered pulling it up, but the rabbits love to eat the tender apple wood to the ground every winter, so I kind of feel like it fills some ecological niche in my back yard. 

I linked to an article about aphid farming by ants, but the gist of it is: the aphids are not entirely willing participants, but they do benefit from ant herding in that the ants will remove sick aphids and otherwise keep away other predators. The aphids, meanwhile, feed an enzyme they produce called 'honeydew' to the ants. 

It's a weird, wonderful world in my backyard, my friends. 

Comments

[spiderplanet]

I also have an aphid problem! I just ordered some ladybugs from eBay, we'll see how that works. I was so happy to see no Japanese beetles on the cherry tree this year.

I want to co-exist with bugs. I want them to do all of the beneficial things and none of the destructive things. Argh!

[lydamorehouse]

I'm glad you found a source! I should consider ladybugs again, it was kind of fun that year the bucket of them lived in my fridge. (My wife, however, was less pleased.)

I just dropped you a note on yours about organic, homemade pesticides (safe for human consumption,) but I feel the same way about bugs that you do and so I very much go back and forth--really depending on how bad/destructive the insect infestation is. The first year that I got red velvet mites on the golden glows (a mum type flower) I aggressively sprayed them with soap which, while I did have to do it often, did control the population. So, that's a thought to consider. The amount of soap you end up using really does seem negligible, but I am also seeing that you can use mineral oil or salt or even garlic sprays, if you prefer.

[spiderplanet]

Excellent! Thanks!

[pameladean]

Well, you have to admit it's a very jaunty pest!

I am helpless against ant farmers. I just can't try to kill them. I would probably end up spraying the jaunty bugs with soap if they were really getting at my cherished herbs, though.

The herb blight I actually had didn't seem to feature any stripy bugs and may have been fungal. Maybe next year I'll give them a try again. At least I might get stripy bugs, if nothing else.

P.

[lydamorehouse]

I am currently steeping some "garlic tea" in an attempt to discourage the cheerful little bug, but I am loathe to soap them... as I agree they're kind of cute. However, there are a LOT of them, so maybe a little incentive to move on would be okay? :-)

[applenym]

We have those aphids too! My husband just found them on his marsh milkweed. He thought at first they were tiny eggs, but then he saw their little legs moving. Such vibrantly yellow little bugs! I took many photos. I would have loved to see an ant farming them, but no such luck.

He sprayed them with a hose to knock them off the plant. I'm not sure if this will do any good, since won't they just climb back up once they find their footing again? But he doesn't want them to kill his milkweed, so next step if they come back: Spray them with Original Blue Dawn heavily diluted with water. Or possibly rubbing alcohol? He keeps coming up with different solutions from Google, so we'll see what he settles on.

[lydamorehouse]

I will say that homemade garlic spray seems to be working (albeit slowly) on my oregano. I'm letting the ants have their farm, and being careful not to get garlic smell on any of the parsley that the parsley worms (baby black swallowtails) are munching on.