How to Manage Pests

Pest identification and confirmation—Woolly aphids

Woolly aphids can be distinguished from other aphids by the waxy white or gray substance they secrete over their body surface. They may be confused with mealybugs; their waxy coating makes them superficially similar, but their overall body shape is quite different. All aphids are small pear-shaped insects with long legs and antennae. Most species have a pair of tubelike structures called cornicles projecting outward from the hind end of the body. Cornicles on woolly apple aphid are very short. Burls on tree limbs and the swollen nodular root galls produced by this aphid are unique as well. Woolly aphids are mostly a problem on apple, ash, cotoneaster, hawthorn, oak, pyracantha, or elm. Many Eriosoma and Prociphilus species of woolly aphids alternate generations between different hosts. These aphids migrate between pine roots and oak leaves, fir roots and ash leaves, poplar leaf galls and lettuce roots, and the bark or foliage of elm and apple or other rosaceous family plants.