On 12 Mar, 23:22, K wrote:

Interesting article in latest issue of Garden by a lady who used to be
involved in research which used aphids to transfer viruses from plant to
plant thus requiring a good supply of aphids. When aphid populations
were waning, their approach was to spray once with an insecticide. This
killed all aphids on leaf surfaces but not those in nooks and crannies.
It also killed all predators (who roamed widely over leaf surfaces and
therefore picked up the insecticide). Resultant rebound from breeding of
the hidden-away aphids resulted in bumper crop of aphids within two
weeks.

I was overwhelmed to see that article in The Garden mag. After so many
years we've been talking about this, it is amusing to see that it is
now taken seriously. I suspose it's because so many chemicals have
been removed from the shelves, plus the incredible invasion of a lot
of insects and their cheer numbers - we cannot pretend that nothing is
wrong any longer. A good balance of *all* insects is necessary to a
healty garden, that includes ants, aphids, spiders, snails etc.