As promised yesterday, today we are going to look at the relationship between fava bean plants, aphids and beneficial insects.
Take a look at this video from Cityfarmer TV.
The narrator suggests sometimes letting one pest that isn’t causing much damage go can help out with later, more severe problems.
Do you grow fava beans? Have you ever seen aphids on them?
I grow faba for my research, and use them as a food source for Pea Aphids, which I use as a food source for Green Lacewings and two Ladybeetles.
Aphids on beans is all I see, it seems.
I used to raise aphids on fava to feed ladybeetles. We were feeding Russian wheat aphids to Scymnus sp. That’s where I first learned about fava.