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Go away, onion aphids

 
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Does anyone have a success story when dealing with onion aphids?
They are black colored and have been feasting on Egyptian walking onions on and off for a year and have now moved to potato onions (tears of sadness). I am pretty confident of identifying them correctly. They only attacked the alliums. There is definitely some ant activity going on as well in the onion bed.

Things that didn't work so far:
-blasting with a hose daily (they come right back)
-diatomaceous earth (I guess it may not be particularly effective for aphids)
-neem spray
-insecticidal soap (potassium salt based - used as last resort)

Have not tried:
-picking the aphids off individually (hard to do with onions, I guess we sort of tried)
-rosemary - I've read a post here on someone surrounding their Egyptian onions with rosemary in a similar situation, but now can't find it; we do have extra rosemary, but cannot propagate it quickly enough (also does not grow good here). Perhaps trying some sort of spray of rosemary infusion?
-killing ants (They may be farming the aphids, but I don't see a ton of ants or anything. The ants are black and medium sized. I would prefer to avoid killing them).
-ladybugs (have not tried purchasing. We do have some around - in fact, some were happily munching on green-colored aphids on an apple tree, but the ladybugs seem to mostly congregate in our attic and not as much in perennial veggie garden)

The onions are in a raised bed made out of concrete blocks, the only one we have. Our onions have never succeeded in clay otherwise and they were doing so good for almost a year! The potato onions were a bit of an investment as well. Of note, they are not quite ready to harvest, but starting to divide.

This has been the worst pest situation since a horde of J-beetles came to town. I should also note the infestation is relatively severe.
Please help!


 
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Another option is to make the onions stronger/healthier so that the aphids select an easier target.
What are some things that you can do to make your onions stronger?

Also if the aphids doesn't affects your root/bulbs harvest, it might be okay to just let them be.

There is also crop rotation/poly-culture.
 
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Have you tried using a soap solution sprayed on the aphids?

Have you gotten rid of the ants that farm the aphids?  A soap solution will get rid of those too.
 
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I get these on my alliums (scallions) when it's dry.
As soon as it rains, the problem seems to solve itself.
If they bother me enough, I'll spray with a weak soap or dish detergent solution, as Anne mentions, as often as necessary (every day, if I have to).
I always have baby scallions coming up and I hate to blast them with the hose, as they generally get damaged (and I find it doesn't do much). Same with neem, can't get DE here so no idea if that works.
Another good suggestion above is to fertilize these onions so they survive all this.
 
Tanya White
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S Bengi: Totally agree that stronger plants don't seem to be attacked by pests as much in general. Sadly, these were the most awesome onions I've ever grown. I haven't tried to harvest any yet, but I worry that if I divide these as planned, the aphids will just come back. I wasn't planning to eat any this year yet. I was also hoping NOT to rotate just yet (it's been less than one year and I was hoping to go for 3 years or so without moving the raised bed). I will likely have to start with new onions if I have to (they were expensive as they are perennial).

Anne Miller: I've only tried insecticidal soap, I may try my homemade solution. THank you for the suggestion.

Tereza Okava: Good idea on daily repeat! That seems to be helping in general.

Update: I have used the insecticidal soap 2 days in a row and the aphids seem to be going down. There are also some type of black flying insects that look predatory, like small wasps. I don't want to overuse the insecticidal soap, so will try some sort of homemade solution with gentle soap next.

Fingers crossed! Thank you for all your input!
 
S Bengi
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Yes, sometimes you just have to give nature a bit of time for the buildup of pradatory insects to do their thing.
 
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one thing i would suggest using would be a garlic like spray with water would help.
 
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S Bengi wrote:Yes, sometimes you just have to give nature a bit of time for the buildup of pradatory insects to do their thing.



Yes, I really did find that after I'd had permanent coarse mulch in place for a couple of years, I would see many different kinds of small spiders, and the pest problems tended to be less extreme. The ecosystem was getting into balance.
 
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I’ve had those aphids attack and kill onions even when the plants are growing robustly. So I found that adding more fertilizer and compost didn’t solve the problem. Like you, I’ve tried water to blast them off and spraying with neem. Neither solved the problem. I tried wiping them off and that also failed , probably due to the fact that I had a large planting of onions and couldn’t wipe every aphid off. I’ve tried safer soap, garlic spray, and simple dish soap spray. Not very effective. When only sprayed once a week. But I did not try daily or every other day spraying. I now use a homemade nicotine spray which seems to control them the best. And I am mindful to plant each year’s crop in a new location. Nicotine spray, while organic, is a non-selective pesticide. One needs to be careful when using it. I wish I had a better choice, but I haven’t discovered one yet. I’m still looking.  
 
Tanya White
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Su Ba wrote:I’ve had those aphids attack and kill onions even when the plants are growing robustly. So I found that adding more fertilizer and compost didn’t solve the problem. Like you, I’ve tried water to blast them off and spraying with neem. Neither solved the problem. I tried wiping them off and that also failed , probably due to the fact that I had a large planting of onions and couldn’t wipe every aphid off. I’ve tried safer soap, garlic spray, and simple dish soap spray. Not very effective. When only sprayed once a week. But I did not try daily or every other day spraying. I now use a homemade nicotine spray which seems to control them the best. And I am mindful to plant each year’s crop in a new location. Nicotine spray, while organic, is a non-selective pesticide. One needs to be careful when using it. I wish I had a better choice, but I haven’t discovered one yet. I’m still looking.  



Su Ba: Thank you so much for your reply. It is reassuring to hear how hard these things are to kill, although I am sorry this also happened to your onions. I may have to resort to more extreme measures as well!
 
Tanya White
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Update:

Potato onions have died back. The aphids never quite disappeared. I thought it was time to harvest, but they were completely rotten (possibly due to spraying them with hose to knock down the aphids). I pulled them out, as the case wiht Egyptian onions (which were originally attacked, also only a few survived), as well as the chives (attacked last). The good news is we mostly enjoy the onions as scallions and there are only a handful of dishes where I add onion bulbs. We surely do love garlic, which could probably be the next target for these aphids, so we had to act fast. The garlic is grown on the other side of the house.

I think going forward, we will try to grow just Red Welsh Onions (or similar bunching onions) as an all-purpose onion. I can use the bulb parts as "onions".
 
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