You may recall a series of reports last fall, when we described
populations of aphids on buckthorn at various sites in Indiana,
Ohio and Michigan. Following the huge aphid exodus from soybeans
in late September, we may have expected to find large numbers of
the insects on their overwintering host. The opposite was in
fact true – very low numbers of aphids survived to lay eggs,
most were killed by a fungal disease outbreak. Eggs and a winged
soyean aphid, next to buckthorn bud Dave Voegtlin, an aphid
taxonomist formerly of the Illinois Natural History Survey,
recently visited those same sites and reports that aphids did
indeed survive the rather harsh winter. However, as predicted by
the low egg numbers in fall, the colonies currently developing
on buckthorn are small in number. Although soybeans are not yet
planted in most areas, there are winged aphids on buckthorn –
meaning that movement to soybeans (their summer host) could
happen at any time. Dr. Voegtlin suggests that if you are
curious about when soybea