APHIDS are GREAT INDICATORS of...

this week I'm gonna show you how a fydd of a problem in your trees or in your garden plants stay tuned [Music] first let's start by making clear what are aphids well here's some you're right there you see those little red guys in this case I'd like to show them on trees but I haven't seen any aphids on trees for years in our tree we do get them on this one plant and I always like to be able to observe them and try to figure out why are they there because it's one thing to have an insect but it's really important to be able to figure out why do you have them let me give you a couple of stories to start he feeds I'm just looking here's the primate predator let me show you that yeah ladybugs are great hunters of aphids I'd like to see their larvae the antlion that's that's the predator the number one predator if you see the prey you should be able to see the predator so it makes sense to find a ladybug here back to aphids so let me give you a couple of stories about aphids while I was in New Zealand for the Beyond Organic and Zed tour you could look up some of the detail beyond organic and Zed tour.com I was a few years ago and did a presentation lady came up to me at whose place we were staying that that day and she said you know you're you're talking about different things she says I go one fruit tree a lemon tree that's just infested with with aphids okay I said well if it's our great indicator of an unbalanced fertilization usually showing really an excess of nitrogen said do you give do you fertilize your trees no not at all do you give them compost nope okay do you have others shows yeah I have five lemon trees but only one of them is infested all right I'm thinking through there's something that makes that tree that location have too much especially nitrogen I'm trying to think I'm going through the list artificial fertilizer compost No was there something there sometimes it may have been an old farm and it was where them in Europe I was so going through nope nope nope nope well I said there's something obviously wrong in that location at that point her husband who was beside her said well dear he's right he says when we when I wake up that's where I go to urinate around that lemon tree so I spread it all around you okay so I said well how often do you do that every morning so at least 320 doses per year I said well don't have to look any further that's that's the reason that one is infested with aphids said it's showing signs of having way too much nitrogen fertilizer by the way a fruit tree only needs 20 urinations to get its dose of nitrogen for the year so if you have a few fruit trees spread the goodness around if you have that habit of urinating around around your fruit trees so that problem was solved you think they are indicators they're not the problem please don't try to get rid of the aphids they're there to solve the problem how do they do it I called them nature's pump and if you look at Athens what are they doing they're boring down into the stem of the plant let me find some here again they're boring in and they're sucking the SAP out of the stem of that plant basically to try to slow that plant down because it's either has too much nitrogen which pushes the growth excessively or the fertilization is imbalanced there's not a proper bounce usually if you fertilize with just a nitrogen rich source urine is one chicken manure is another certainly the chemical fertilizers give you another example the one year I saw a fits in our fruit trees was the first year we bought the orchard it was still just a monoculture apple orchard and the previous owner had a bag of nitrogen fertilizer 2000 it was left and I thought I mean that stuff can explode in a dump so I thought you know what I don't really want to put it in the in the garbage so it goes in the dump so I spread it in in this orchard block which was just apples at the time and I spread that one bag of a 40-pound bag spread over one acre so that's not a it's not a very big dose but I put it throughout the this block and that summer so it was springtime that summer we had a fits in our apple trees in this block in the other orchard blocks there were no aphids and so that is a great indication of an imbalance because of one element in particular so please don't blame the aphids I'm looking for some around here don't blame the aphids for being the problem they are not the problem they're pointing to the problem Sir Albert Howard had a right he said insects disease and weeds are not a problem they should be our professors and they are pointing to the problem so take a look at them try to figure out why you have them and why I'm trying to think why these perennial sunflowers some of the plants have a fits not all of them some of them do and I'm thinking one they grew really well in the early years got well-established they're still doing well but they're a prairie plant they are an open field plant right now this is not open field this is right in the orchard they're getting way too much shade and so they're stressed and one of the things they're calling too is they're calling too aphids to get rid of them basically and I wish they would sorry food break here came upon these yellow raspberries can't exactly let them go you know one thing about the permaculture orchard there are some things that are dirty jobs but somebody's got to do it and my rule for picking and eating is you never just pick one you always pick a handful so you could get a mouthful mm-hmm I want to show you where you would typically get a fits I came to look for an apple tree that we had pruned pretty hard here was a big pruning cut and as the pan principle within the distance of your hand you'll get really active growth so you see one two three big branches and here was another big cut so this is some active very fast growing shoots they're the ones that are most likely to have Athens so if we take a look at them a little closer no there's no aphids there so why aren't there a federa would normally find aphids here's another really good shoot you see that that's at least a meter or three feet long and you look around the stem at the base of the the leaves and again there's no aphids well like I say Athens they are a symptom symptom of imbalanced fertilization I don't mean to sound too disappointed it's a great thing but we just don't have a Fitz one because we haven't fertilized this orchard ever the only bit of fertility it gets is when we spray way as we spray against the fungal diseases primarily scaffolding but because they don't get pushed on any kind of fertilizer their fertility is balanced and so if you have a Fitz if they are a problem for you checking out some other good growth nothing if you have a lot of aphids try changing your fertilizer try to get a more balanced fertilizer and certainly try to reduce the nitrogen dose in your fertilizer whatever you're using it's probably too high a fertilizer of nitrogen and so he feeds are a great great indicator of that problem excessive nitrogen fertilizer here's a really active growth on an Asian pear so even to the end-all clean there's nothing there sorry can't show you any aphids on fruit trees so remember if you get Athens check your fertility stop fertilizing or stop fertilizing as much and just a point if you're gonna fertilize and you're gonna give a certain dose let's say you're giving 20 20 pounds of nitrogen equivalent per acre maybe break up that 20 pounds into three applications a third in the spring a third in the summer and a third really late in the fall after the leaves fall that will help balance out and you won't get this spike of fertility that then is basically a call do you want them there or not if you don't then change the way you do it that's really all there is to it aphids are easy to get rid of their great indicator something isn't right in the fertility you may have soiled that tells you you know what you don't need any fertility you have so much natural fertility in your soil that don't fertilize so aphids are good great not even good they're great indicator I think aphids are one of the easiest insects to indicate for you that you have an excess fertility problem so that's that's all I have to say this week thanks for the concern last week's video I want to quit if you didn't see it take a look and certainly take a look at some of the comments thank you for your comments and your concerns it was really appreciated that was a reality dose it's not all rosy and it's not all wonderful there are times where you hit a wall and I just wanted to show you a look at what that wall looks like so thanks for your comments and concerns and as I said things usually can go worse before they go better so this week I came with my daughter to prune the tops of these really tall honey locusts and I I fell off the ladder 10 feet up in the air on my back and got a slight concussion and a few good bruises but that's about it I'm alive it slowed me down I didn't do anything more for the rest of the week so you know things happen for a reason so thanks for watching I really appreciate it thanks for your comments and I hope these videos help you they even helped me I hope to see you next week thanks for watching [Music] hey please subscribe and check out our latest video

Channel: Stefan Sobkowiak - The Permaculture Orchard

Views: 542,657

Keywords: aphids are an indicator of, Aphids, aphids on plants, why do i have aphids, stefan sobkowiak, aphids control, miracle farms, miracle farm, aphid control, how to kill aphids, kill aphids, aphids and ladybugs, what are aphids, aphids on plants how to get rid of them, how to get rid of aphids, permaculture, permaculture orchard

Id: sGlqnkE1Id0

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 03 2018