Pirate bugs on apple tree leaves

[boundtothesoil]

I don't know whether anyone else has been squishing pirate bugs ( anthocorids) when they find them on young leaves and buds on apple trees, but until today I have, thinking that they must be causing damage, not least because they seem to be found on damaged leaves. How wrong I've been.


Integrated Fruit Management - Photo Gallery - Biological control (photos)

To make it worse, there has usually been one adult policing each of the terminal leaf buds on my seedling apple trees, and I had become pretty adept at search and destroy.

I guess It's a case of correlation not meaning causation.

[Richard Eldritch]

The link says they eat aphids and leaf miners so that's a good thing. The reason they're around curled leaves is that they're eating the aphids that cause the leaf curl.

[Nicos]

Good link...interesting reading!
Well spotted .