Topic: pests on lettuce roots

[veggie perin]

Hi
My cos lettuces were doing very well until recently, they turned yellow and leaves began to die, upon inspection, roots and soil had white deposit on them and were covered with greenish white aphid like insects (below the ground), I've never come across this before any help or remedy would be very much appreciated.......Veggie

[thifasmom]

root aphids i think they are called, i have them on one of my parsley this year and one last year, this year also found on one of my celeriac and last year i also found it on the roots of one of my runnerbean plants which were in the bed the celeriac is in. i had hoped the harsh winter would have finished them off. but the ants also farm them.

last week i came across a tomato leaf spray solution which i made and seems to be keeping them in check.

[GodfreyRob]

root aphids i think they are called, i have them on one of my parsley this year and one last year, this year also found on one of my celeriac and last year i also found it on the roots of one of my runnerbean plants which were in the bed the celeriac is in. i had hoped the harsh winter would have finished them off. but the ants also farm them.

last week i came across a tomato leaf spray solution which i made and seems to be keeping them in check.

Same thing happened to me - really great looking lettuce (cos, butterhead and iceberg types) then they all drooped and outer leaves died back :(

Do you apply the spray around the stem/soil surface?
Is it meant to control or prevent the problem?

Seems like they attack a range of plant roots - is there a general preventative method?

[thifasmom]

root aphids i think they are called, i have them on one of my parsley this year and one last year, this year also found on one of my celeriac and last year i also found it on the roots of one of my runnerbean plants which were in the bed the celeriac is in. i had hoped the harsh winter would have finished them off. but the ants also farm them.

last week i came across a tomato leaf spray solution which i made and seems to be keeping them in check.

Same thing happened to me - really great looking lettuce (cos, butterhead and iceberg types) then they all drooped and outer leaves died back :(

Do you apply the spray around the stem/soil surface?
Is it meant to control or prevent the problem?

Seems like they attack a range of plant roots - is there a general preventative method?

yes it does appear they attack a range of plants.

I removed a little bit of the soil the ants had built up around them then drowned the area with the solution. the link is the recipe but i changed it slightly so as to not to have to wait 24hrs for the finished product. i heated the water to just boiling then steeped the leaves till it was cool enough to pour onto the plants roots safely. i repeated it twice a day for two days. this was last Thursday and checking today the situation is much better so i poured some more on this morning, if it doesn't rain I'll repeat this afternoon.

http://www.canadiancountrywoman.com/garden/bugrecipes.php

I don't know if there is a preventive solution to the problem and I'm not sure which pests will eat them as i haven't seen anything trying to eat them (maybe ground beetles ???). so maybe encouraging lots of organic type methods which hopefully increases the beneficial prey insects is a possibility for prevention.

last year when i spotted them on the runnerbean roots i was non to bothered as i was removing the plants. i did lightly turn the soil over to expose them to birds.

and when i found them on the parsley they were under a cloche so i disturbed the soil often with large amounts of water. then i found out the parsley was hardy so i uncovered it and the cold killed them off in the end i suspect.

[thifasmom]

as i was walking around the garden yesterday i spotted a dandelion plant and remembered that they are sometimes infested with large root aphid population, in my garedn anyway. so one preventative method maybe to eliminate weeds that foster the problem.

[simmo116]

i have them on my parsnips and radish's  lost all my radish's. but snipsseem to have come thru.