Crops suffered and farmers lost money this past growing season thanks to a record amount of aphids invading northern Illinois.

Now, months after the end of the growing season, researchers at the University of Illinois Extension DeKalb County Unit are hosting a Soybean Aphid Management workshop on Feb. 5. Aphids are insects that eat crops. Registration for the workshop is required and the cost is $25 per person. Lunch and all provided materials are included in the price. The last day to register for the program is Monday.

Specialists from Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin will discuss, via conference call and PowerPoint presentation, what they learned about aphids in 2003 and what they will do in the future, said Joy Gulotta, a DeKalb County Unit leader.

DeKalb County never has had such a large invasion of aphids as it did this past growing season, Gulotta said. The program will emphasize the information necessary to make the best decisions for dealing with aphids in the future.

The damage caused by the aphid invasion was spread across Illinois, Iowa and southern Wisconsin.

“It varied from area to area, person to person, farm to farm,” said Lyle Paul, agronomist at the Northern Illinois Agronomy Research Center in Shabbona.

Each farmer and area was hit differently, Paul said. The spread of aphids started in northern Illinois and continued downstate.

“The aphid was not known until three years ago in the United States,” Paul said. Aphids reportedly came from the soybean production area in China. The invasion began in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, so there is the possibility aphids came to the United States via O’Hare International Airport, Paul said.

The aphid population peaked in mid-July based on the amount caught in insect traps, Paul said. Aphids have a number of predators, including multi-colored Asian lady beetles and parasitoid wasps.

“As the number of the aphids build, the number of the predators build,” Paul said.

However, there is a delay between peak times for predators and prey, Paul said. In the case of the aphids in northern Illinois, the beetles peaked a couple months later.

“That’s why you saw the increase in late September,” Paul said. The beetles were brought to the United States 40 years ago to combat cotton aphids in the southeast.

Two other workshops are planned for March 6 and 12, according to the U of I extension Web site.

“Our whole mission is to bring [U of I’s] education base to each of the counties,” Gulotta said of the DeKalb County extension.

The Agronomy Center is another extension of the U of I. Paul called the site an off-campus research center from the crop science department of U of I. There are five sites spread around the state and are set up to study corn, soybean, wheat, oats and alfalfa crops.