Woolly Apple Aphids
Mike Basedow, Tree Fruit Specialist
Eastern New York Commercial Horticulture
Woolly apple aphids have been showing up in increasing numbers the past few years in Eastern New York orchards. In addition to apple, its hosts include American elm, hawthorn, and mountain ash. It overwinters as an egg in bark cracks and crevices, or as a nymph on roots underground and in various protected locations on trees. WAA is attracted to the base of root suckers and around pruning wounds and cankers on limbs and trunks, and colonizes both above-ground parts of the apple tree as well as the roots. In the spring, the nymphs, which are reddish-brown with a bluish-white waxy covering, crawl up from the roots to initiate aerial colonies. These initially build up on the inside of the canopy on sites such as wounds or pruning scars, and later become numerous in the outer portion of the tree canopy, usually during late July to early August.
Woolly Apple Aphids (pdf; 155KB)
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