On Sunday/Monday, there was a huge flight of soybean aphid gynoparae (winged females) from soybeans to buckthorn.

On Monday, I found females with tiny newly-deposited nymphs on every buckthorn shrub I examined around MSU. Many of these were ant-tended (i.e being protected), and I didn’t see any ladybugs or other predators. These nymphs will mature into oviparae and lay eggs in October. Suction trap catches throughout Michigan in September have been “0”, but I expect that the trap catch from this week will have SBA. Heavy aphid numbers were also reported this week in Ontario and Ohio (apparently from the same flight), and last week from Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota.

Thus early indications point to higher SBA populations in 2007.

Dr. Christina DiFonzo
Field Crops Entomology Program
Michigan State University

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