No health concern, but what if aphids are accidentally ingested? … What about accidentally inhaled?
• on September 22, 2009 at 6:30 am | Reply David Voegtlin As might be assumed such an extraordinary number of aphids in the air is the product of the past few months. For most of the summer there were few soybean aphids on the Illinois soybean crop. In mid-August this changed with migration into Illinois, most likely from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa where high populations were found all summer. August temperatures were in the 70′s and 80′s and this is the range where the soybean aphid has its maximum reproductive rate. Field populations in Illinois exploded in August and early September. I visited many soybean fields to monitor the aphid and noted that in many fields there were few natural enemies, including the multicolored Asian lady beetle. In addition, this late in the season many of the fields were near maturity, and farmers made the decision to not spray these fields. So…. the soybean aphids were allowed to continue their population growth. In autumn when the photoperiod is les
