Weird Insect - ID and care help

imhar5h

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Seems to behave like an aphid (has ants all over), but looks pretty gnarly and is quite a bit bigger compared to the green version. What do you guys think?

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Wires_Guy_wires

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Looks like something from the cicada family.
You can't spray against those: they feed, they fly away, they die from poisoning, another one flies to your plant, repeat until winter.
 

Starfox

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Googled this one and it seems to match.. It's on my pepper plants right now.

I'll start with neem and see what happens.

Pepper plants, that would make sense for these.
I may be wrong but I think the eggs are laid in the branches, If you can ID where they have hatched from and maybe see if other areas have been affected then cutting below those areas before they hatch and disposing of it would be a good treatment too.
 

imhar5h

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Pepper plants, that would make sense for these.
I may be wrong but I think the eggs are laid in the branches, If you can ID where they have hatched from and maybe see if other areas have been affected then cutting below those areas before they hatch and disposing of it would be a good treatment too.

Good call, I will check on that.

I tried washing them but they just climbed back up the trunk to the same spot. I also sprayed a little bit of soap and neem so far.
 
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Googled this one and it seems to match.. It's on my pepper plants right now.

I'll start with neem and see what happens.
Neem on something you would eat is all kinds of bad. It's been shown to cause neurological damage in bees after they pollenate flowers of plants treated months before budding. Can't be good.
 
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You can also order some parasitic nematodes from there as a preventive, to be applied to your landscape. From what little I understand there are 3 that can be used as a benefit. You want the ones that just sit on the soil line vertical like a crazy straw. They are very expensive and should be applied in spring rains. It's also likely they will not help this specific problem, but impact the general plague of pests that come to your yard by crawling there. Spend the winter looking into it and make a decision in March. I found this book helpful as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Attracting-B...68154276&s=gateway&sprefix=attracting+&sr=8-1
 
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