Anyone??

I'm having trouble with doing search here on the forum. I'm looking for info on aphids. I enter the word aphids on the search bar and for the Daylily Forum. It brings up several links but I can't find any reference to aphids on these links. Some of the links are weeks long and I have no way to know where to look. I tried looking on the day that is referenced on the search results, but thats always just the date of the last response in that link.

I hope I'm doing something silly. Any ideas??
Blessings

You aren't doing anything wrong. Unless there is another way to search, when you type the word in search it will bring up any topic where that word has been used even if it was just once in a topic with 500 replies.

Is there something in particular you are wanting to know about aphids?

yes, can you tell me a way to prevent having the million or so I've got this year, for next year???? I'm using soapy water and an insect spray on them but this is rediculous, they are everywhere! Blessings, Mona

What kind of insect spray are you using? I use Avid (which is for more than just aphids). It's expensive, but it lasts a long time. Before that I used Bayer Advanced Complete insect killer. It's a systemic so it lasts I think about 30 days. This is from the AHS website


Aphids
Daylilies have their own specific aphid which feeds only on daylilies.
Aphids are most active in cool weatherspring and fall in temperate zones, and all winter long in the subtropics.
Controlling daylily aphids is not as easy as with other kinds of aphids, which are usually vulnerable to such soft controls as soaps.
In order to reach daylily aphids inside the fans, a pesticide with at least a mildly systemic action is needed.
Do not use the pesticide Kelthane, which is known to harm daylilies.

What I did last year was sprayed the last week of Feb or it may have been the first week in March with the Bayer Advanced and it took care of them all season. I didn't have to spray for aphids again until a few weeks ago. It also helps if you see any ant beds to try and get rid of them because ants herd aphids. They will take the aphid eggs into the ant beds in the winter and protect them and in spring when they hatch the ants carry them to whatever plants to feed on.

I used one that was put out by Expert, a Walmart brand a couple of years ago. I looked at the ingerdients today. I didn't recognized the ingredients, so it probably isn't systemic. Or at least I didn't see that anywhere. I've only spray about 100 plants, that how many I've gotten cleaned out. So, where do I find Avid?? I have about 1400 pots to go, not to mention all the ones in the ground. Hope this stuff is very concentrated so I want have to buy it by the gallons.

That's just what I need!Fire ants baby sitting aphids!!! I battle fire ants all year round. They always manage to sneak into a few of pots and then the battle is ON! I'll get the foot biting little BAS_____! out of one pot and they promptly go underground for a few days and then reappear in another pot 100 foot away from the last. I hate the ants and the aphids, not to mention voles. So, that's the biggest things on my list. I haven't seen any ants since December but I'm sure they are lurking around somewhere. They''res an open field behind our land and I'll run them off us and they just go to the field, rest, eat and come back fighting. When I'm bit, I get a dime size blister on every bit and it hurts like liquid fire, sometimes for days.

Sorry, Michele, but I don't like to use chemicals but I'm desperate with all these aphids. With this freaky weather, I'm betting that I'll have a raging case of rust this fall, too..

Sleep good, and blessings, Mona

The best thing I have found for fire ants is Amdro fire ant bait. It's granules you sprinkle around the mounds ( you don't need a lot ) They feed it to their queen. I'm sure there are other good ones but that's the one I like best. I have found that those bags of bug-b-gone or the other brands for a 100 different insects (including ants) just make fire ants relocate. It needs to be specifically for fire ants (IMO).
I don't think the fire ants herd aphids but those kind you see crawling up and down the trees do.

Avid can be bought online. You can get the generic (Abemectin) a lot cheaper. Either google avid miticide /Abemectin miticide (shopping search) or go to eBay / Amazon and search (eBay usually has best prices). It generally shows both the generic and name brand if you type in Avid miticide. When looking keep an eye out on size. You may find some Avid is cheaper but it's usually for the 8oz and not the bigger size for same price.
I mix 2 oz to 15 gal, so break that down to what ever size sprayer you have. Avid is also good for spidermites (not the eggs though so you would need an ovacide- very expensive- or spray the Avid at least 3 times 3-5 day apart), leaf miners, thrips.

You can also use Horticultural oil (ultra fine or some other brand). It takes longer to kill them because it suffocates them. I actually use that with the Avid.

Michele, re the Bayer Advanced Complete insect killer, does it say underneath something like "For soil and turf"? I'm trying to find the right product, but that's what I'm seeing. Is there a separate one I should be looking for for plants/perennials?

I don't know about aphids, since I don't start seed indoors.

But... About the search. I set my preferences to have a lot of posts per page - that helps with the way I search. I usually have mine set to 100.

If I searched the daylily forum for aphids, I would then click on a likely thread, THEN I would use the browser find feature once I have the thread open. I have a Mac, and my Browser is Safari. So I do a "command F" for find, then I put in aphids, and it will take me right to the word aphid. Safari has little arrows in the find that you click to go to the next "aphid" word. You need to do ths for every page of the thread...that is why it is handy when searching to set your ATP preferences to show a lot of posts per page.

I would think that the PC would have a similar additional search function.

Betty, yes that's the one. I still had earthworms, bees, parasitic wasp (which lay their eggs in leafhopper eggs to kill the larvae) and ladybugs. During bloom season if I sprayed anything (crape myrtles or azaleas or whatever) I always sprayed early in the morning or really late when the insects aren't as active. In the butterfly gardens I had at my old place I just sprayed everything off with the hose or used the Bayer Tree and Shrub granules that gets absorbed through the roots because I had tons of beneficial insects such as mealybug destroyer larvae that eats the aphids that I didn't want to kill.

Hi Juli, My plants are outside that are so very infested with aphids. Millions of aphids. I always have some in early Spring, but this year is terrible and it's not even early Spring. It's dead of Winter and it's 72 degrees today!!!! We had a few storms tonight but our area was only a little lightning, nothing bad. I heard on TV that south of here there was a tornado indicated on radar but I don't know if it was on the ground.

I'm going to look for some Avid. I need to spray everything asap instead of using this stuff I've had for a couple of years.

Thanks all, Mona

OH Me, Avid is $105 for 8oz. I know that would probably do alot, but I just don't have that kind of money. I'm going to switch to a new bottle of Seven concentrate that I bought in October. It's been inside and should be good as new. Of course, it only kills on contact, as I read, but wow the other is so high.

Yes it is high. You can get the generic abemectin for around $93 a quart. I understand not having that much. Hopefully the Sevin will work.

Mona,

Check at your local Lowes' or Home Depot. They should have a systemic insecticide for ornamental plants in the garden center. Orhto used to make one called Othene and I know Spectracide makes one I just can't remember the name. You'll have to read the labels to see which is ok for daylilies. Sevin will kill the ones you actually hit, but any that are down inside the fans will just keep sucking the life out of your plants. I try to be as organic as possible, but with the outbreak your describing I think you may need to be more ruthless. Good luck.

I'm going to town one day soon. I was going to look for a systemic anyway and we have a Lowes and a Home Depot plus a big agri-store. I did spray today with the Sevin. I got all of the pots except mabe 100. The ones I lack are some of the older ones, but I will get them asap. They got a really good dose with close attention to trying to get as much in the center and around the base as I could get. I was using a 2 gallon sprayer that was putting out a good spray, so this will help. My DH put me a 10ft long hose on the sprayer so I only had to tote it a very little. Nothing like I did with the attached short hose. I love it!!!! He did great with this. I thought of it, and he did it, so I guess we for once in 40 years did something good!!

I was doing my clean, trim and spray Spring ritiual, but I decided to stop that and get as many sprayed as possible. I still had to stop and clean out a bunch because the dead leaves were so compacted in a few areas that it was a must to clean the pots out before spraying. In one bad area, I was bent over, cleaning and pulling dead leaves and tree leaves, using short little yanks and yanked one of the daylilies completely out of the pot I did this after using the same little quick yank on about 50 with no problems. This pot only had about half as much soil as the rest. I think I must have ran out of soil on that one and never finished it for some reason. It had 3 new roots growing, so I know that the plants are starting to grow. They really shouldn't be for about a month, so I may still have some freezing if the weather turns cold again. Atleast I know that my plants are beginning to recover from winter, what little winter we had.

Thanks to all the advise and if anyone else knows any remedies, please let me know. I'm always open to any suggestion. Blessings, Mona

Michele, how long does a quart of the generic Avid last for you? How often do you spray it? I know you have to spray more times a year than we would. I am glad to hear that it is good for leaf miners. I have decided that what I thought were snail tracks are actually from leaf miners. I plan to go back through the pictures that I took this past summer to try to pinpoint which bed(s) had the leafminers. I had noticed the tiny flies on blooms and in pictures and wondered what they were. I don't remember seeing them until this past summer. I guess the larvae came in the foliage of a daylily that we added to our garden. I don't want to send any of our daylilies that could be infected with the larvae to someone else. I am in the process of cleaning out the dead foliage around daylilies and breaking/cutting off the green foliage of the daylilies. I hope this will help to eliminate some of the pests that overwinter in the dead foliage. I expect to have a bad insect problem this year since we have had so few cold nights (only a few nights in the upper teens here). This year I plan to be ready for those pesty insects (spidermites, aphids, thrips, and now leaf miners).

Doris

Yes, I thought they were snail tracks as well since I had read that leafminers don't affect daylilies, but of course that has been proven different. The larvae are hard to spot because they tend to stay at the base of the foilage right near the crown. I assume they have an active eating period, but I have never seen them in the foilage other than at the base. If you see foilage that has the trails you can tear it off all the way down to the crown and if the larvae is still in there you can squash it. But that would take a lot of time if there were on a lot of daylilies.

This is only my second time using Avid so I'm estimating on how long this will last. I know Fred has had his for awhile. I use a 15 gallon sprayer which can spray out at a steady stream or a light mist; this will determine how long a quart will last you. It also depends on if you really drench the daylilies or just mist them enough for coverage. I just sprayed not too long ago since we have had a mild winter and the aphids were getting really bad. I used about 1 1/2 tanks and it takes 2 oz of Avid per 15 gal. (this is what I was told to use). If you go by the label it says to use 8oz per 100 gal (aphids, thrips, leafminer) so that comes out to about 1/4oz per 3 gal. Bill waldrop use 2 1/2 tsp per 4 gal. Everyone is different so again it depends on how much you use on how long it lasts. I sprayed twice so I used 6 oz of Avid. Fred sprays in early spring 3 times at 1 week intervals (I believe that's the intervals) to make sure and get any spider mites and the eggs that may hatch after spraying; I don't think he sprays in the winter. The only reason we did was because it's been pretty mild except for a few days of freezing here and there. So realistically a quart could last us 3-6 years depending on if we have to spray once or twice a year. If you go by the label usuage it could last you a lot longer than that. Of course it depends on how many daylilies you have to spray (and I know you have quite a bit)

Keep in mind that Avid / generic is not a systemic it's a......

From the internet and label.....
Avid is a contact and translaminar miticide. Translaminar is a term that refers to insecticides/miticides that penetrate the leaf tissue and form a reservoir of active ingredient within the leaf. Avid generally provides up to 28 days of residual activity.

Mix with sufficient water and apply as a foliar spray to obtain uniform coverage. For mites, apply when mites first appear and repeat as necessary to maintain control. For leafminers, apply as needed and repeat at 7-day intervals or as necessary to maintain control. For suppression of aphids, thrips and whiteflies apply when young, immature stages of these pests are first observed and repeat every 7 days for 2 or 3 weeks.

I'm showing you some photos so you can get an idea of how many daylilies there are here. The first one is the potted daylilies and this isn't all of them. I took this before we were done potting them. There are 2000-2500 potted.

The second photo shows 3 of my 7 30 foot beds ( if they were completely full then it would be 6 full beds). on 5 of the beds James has his and they are about 60-70 feet long and full of daylilies as well. Then there are the seedling beds with clumps of seedlings and then the baby seedling beds also. In the spring we will have a bunch more collections planted so I would say it would take 2- 15 gal sprayers full sprayed in spring.





I hope I didn't make it too confusing for you for you. I'm sure Fred will chime in with how long his lasts.

Now, if you are not concerned with spider mites (which is one reason we use Avid) then you can get Imidacloprid 2F( there are different brands available) which if I'm reading correctly it takes 1.5 oz per 100 gal water and it's good for aphids, leafminers, leafhoppers, and a lot more insects. It's a systemic. I have used the Bayer Advanced complete insect killer from Lowes that is the same ingredient but in a lot lower dose (which you have to mix in a whole lot more) and it works great. The Bayer Advanced Complete insect killer I think 30 days or longer (really can't remember) and I only had to spray once for the season. I would have had to use twice with the mild winter.
You can get it from here for $39.95 qt http://www.treestuff.com/store...

or this place has a few brands of the generic
http://www.domyownlawn.com/ins...

Hope some of this helps

Thanks, Michele. Yes, this information is very helpful. I had bought a half gallon of the Advanced Bayer Systemic 3 in 1 from Lowes before Christmas. I just read the information on the back again. It is supposed to kill aphids, thrips, and leaf miners among other insects. I did not realize that I have to pour the mixture on or around the plants. That is not practical here, too many dayliles. I had planned to spray the daylilies. I got a 4 gallon backpack sprayer for Christmas. Do you know if it will be just as effective if I spray the foliage real good with this systemic? If not, I need to get the generic Avid. I am not sure if we have spider mites or not but figure we probably do. I will see Bill Waldrop next Sunday at our daylily meeting. I can find out from him just when and how often he sprays the Avid. I want to have what we need on hand for when we need it. Once again, thank you.

Doris, is it the 3-in-1 insect, disease, and mite control? That shouldn't have to be poured around the daylilies, you should be able to use as a foliar spray. I know they have some that has to be poured around the plants. Those types are meant for the roots to uptake the chemical from what I understand. I've used the Bayer Advance Tree and Shrub (granular form) and it works the same way as the liquid you pour. None of those work on spider mites though, you have to use a miticide. Since they are arachnids, 99% of insecticides will not kill them; if you have them Avid works great although we use an ovacide since Avid doesn't kill the eggs. But that's one reason they say spray 2-3 times that way you kill any new hatched mites. If it is the 3-in-1 insect, disease, and mite control then it should work for spider mites as well since it's listed. The only problem with that is you will end up spending more on the ones from Lowes/Home Depot because you have to add more to the water. The quart of the 3-in-1 concentrate only makes 12 gallons of spray so I would have to actually have 3 bottles on hand to make enough and that would be $45 right there and If I had to spray again then I would have to buy 2 more bottles and that would be $30. So I would spend $75 if not more for one season. I can get the Avid generic for around $95 and it will last me at least a few years. I can also get the generic Imidacloprid for around $35 and it will last even longer. Now in the 3-in-1 it has Tebuconazole which is good for rust. However, it is in such a low dose I'm not sure if it would really work well unless you spray every week. You wouldn't want to be spraying the insecticide in it that often. And with as many daylilies as you have the economical route would be the generic Avid. IMHO

Betty, the Bayer Advanced Complete insect Killer makes up to 80 gallons so that is a good amount and that's why I bought that one in the beginning.The reason I bought it to begin with was I had a lot of earwigs and they starting coming into the house so I started spraying the mulch around the house. Also we have leafhoppers really bad here as well so I used it for that too.

There is other stuff out there that is probably just as good if not better, but this is what I have found effective for me.


If you go to Bill's blog this is where he talks about what he uses
http://billsdaylilycorner.blog...
http://billsdaylilycorner.blog...

It is the fertilizer, insecticide, and fungicide. I am going to try to find the generic Avid on E-bay or Amazon. I would rather go for the sure thing. This has worked for you and should work for us here. I will use the Bayer for our roses. By the way, the Bayer 3 in 1 also says it will kill adult Japanese beetles. I know for a fact that the Bayer Tree And Shrub works! Since discovering it, we no longer have to tolerate the Japanese beetles. Many thanks, Michele! Now, what do you spray for rust? Since we have not had a winter, I expect to see rust later in the summer. I have Daconil that I used last summer for isolated cases.

Michele, I guess I'm confused about the Bayer Advanced Complete Insect Killer. You said in one of your posts above " I use Avid (which is for more than just aphids). It's expensive, but it lasts a long time. Before that I used Bayer Advanced Complete insect killer. It's a systemic so it lasts I think about 30 days."

I assumed you meant the Bayer Advanced was a systemic to last about 30 days, and that's what I wanted to spray my daylilies with for aphids. But when I checked WalMart the Bayer Advanced I found said underneath in smaller print something like "For soil and Turf". So I'm confused -- would I dare spray that on my daylilies? I'm looking for something simple and either premixed or that can be mixed in with up to a gallon of water. I have a little 1 gal. battery operated sprayer and have some nerve damage and arthritis in my hands so I don't do well pumping or squeeze spraying. But I don't want to get into something like Avid. I'd like to keep it simple.

Also, I had already bought two ready-to-use hand spray bottles of Ortho Rose & Flower Insect Killer that says it kills 100+ insects fast and gives up to 4 week protection and it specifically mentions Japanese beetles, aphids, whiteflies, thrips and scale. So now that I realize you were talking about the Bayer Advanced for Trees and Shrubs, I'm wondering if I should try the Ortho instead and just dump the contents in my sprayer. I don't want to hurt these daylilies after babying them through this winter, but I do have a very healthy aphid collection in my pots now and right after it rains this week I want to spray them. It does say "For use on indoor and outdoor plants," so hopefully it wouldn't be so potent that it might harm the daylilies. What do you think?