Our Aquaponics systems are not doing very well. Although our plants are continuing to grow, the plants in grow bed 2 are dying and have lots of aphids. Grow bed 1 is doing much better than grow bed 2 and there are not as much aphids. The plants in grow bed 2 are much smaller & more of them are a yellow/brown color. For making laulau, I think that at this time it would be impossible to make anything out of the leaves that are in grow bed 2 because of the aphids. There is also a lot of moss around the roots of the taro plants and that is probably not helping with the aphids or the healthy growth of the plants. Over all, our system is still dying and we need to think of a new solution to the aphid infestation and decay of our leaves.

Michon and Tori

We are still having an aphid problem and we researched some solutions in trying to get rid of it. One solution is to catch ladybugs and bring it to our system because ladybugs just so happen to eat aphids. Another solution that seems to be working is by sponging the leaves and physically removing the aphids from the leaves. Aphids have taken over and destroyed most of our plants.

11/5/10 Noa and Larry Blog Update

The taro has not made much progress in terms of overall growth. However, the biological war we are waging against the aphids is at a stalemate. The taro leaves still look ravaged, but the ladybugs we have protecting our plants are constantly engaged in a dogfight with the aphids. Our efforts at this point, are focused on how to eradicate the forces that are destroying our crop. The war, wages on.

Once again, Kiana and Lindsey are the best.

We are using sponges to try and control the aphid problem. We are wiping them off. The ants seem to have disappeared and our lady bugs are missing as well. It seems like no matter how many aphids we take off the plants, we always get more.

Kiana and Ryan are the best!!!

The taro is growing at a good pace, but the aphid infestation is getting out of control. We are using Terro to get rid of the ants and it seems to be working, but the aphids don't seem to be going away. We are currently trying to catch ladybugs to put in the aquaponics system, to eat the aphids. We have caught a few, but there is no significant effect yet.

October 29 2010

Since we have been trying a new method of wiping the leaves rid of the aphids they seem to be doing a little better. You can see from the last pictures and todays picture, that the taro is not as infested.

Our taro plants are infested with aphids but, and are slowly taking all the nutrients out of the leaves. We finally found a solution for this issue, Connor brought in 4 ladybugs today and they are already starting to eat away at the aphids. We also started wiping down the aphids from the taro plants using wet sponges to take off mass amounts at a time. We also keep having to take out all of the dying leaves (from the aphids) so our leaf count is decreasing. Hopefully after our adjustments will aid the problem.