Ok, so I freaked out and posted here first without looking it up. Sorry about that =/, but a search has turned up tomato psyllids. That's what these eggs looked like. They were standing up a bit, and fit the description found here:

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/insect/05540.html

This is the first I've seen of this issue, so I guess I'd better check the rest of my plants. I don't know why it seems like everything that can go wrong with this newly planted garden, IS going wrong. Psyllids sound to be pretty freaking rare... so why I'd have them in MY yard is beyond me.

Does this look like a pretty accurate estimation of what I could have? Or do you think it's possible that it's something else? (hopefully)

There's a spray for everything wait till Carolyn or one of the other experts comes online they'll know what to do.

But I want to give you some encouragement in that you seemed to have caught it early because your plants still look very green, healthy and well cared for so they are strong. :)

Whoa! Before you start spraying things into oblivion, check out the attached pictures. You might just be ridding yourself of one of the finest beneficial insects that could be in your garden.

Elaine

Here is a link that might be useful: lacewings

Thats a helluva phone camera!

Thanks for the encouragement. I've been in a really foul mood all day because of the state of my garden, which I didn't realize would have SUCH an effect on my emotional stability, lol. I guess when you've been babying something, and all of a sudden it all goes to h-e-double-hockey-sticks in a handbasket, it's not totally out of the question for it to make a person grouchy.

I was reading that malathion would maybe do the trick, but my local Kmart didn't have any in their garden center. I'm going to go to the local nursery tomorrow, and they should have something.

It's so disappointing because the Sungold was really the tomato I was looking forward to the most, and my second most awaited, the Momotaro, is right next to it, and was just planted about a week and a half ago, so I don't want anything happening to either of them.

vall3fam, I did check out whether or not they might be lacewings, but the eggs had a reddish cast in the sunlight, were very, very, very small, as the website stated they would be (lacewing eggs are supposedly larger), and didn't have strands that looked nearly as long as the ones that lacewings make. I tried looking at every picture I could of the lacewing eggs, and all of them had the same long strands. These eggs were right up close to the leaf, barely standing on end.

nanelle, lol, it's a Samsung Omnia, so it has a 5 megapixel camera. It's great in well lit places, not so great in dimmer places or indoors, BUT it does come with a built in flash. It's really come in a lot of handy since embarking on this gardening adventure. The more things I find, the more pictures I can post for reference! :D

This is just a guess. It kinda looks like milkweed aphid. Possibly
their eggs. I have them on my milkweed, but not on my tomatoes
so far.

roper, about how big would you expect the aphids or eggs to be? These things were probably smaller than the diameter of the thinnest mechanical pencil lead you can buy. Smaller than pinpricks. I mean, if they hadn't been reddish colored, I may not have noticed them at all.

Treatment and control of tomato/potato psyllid. Your posts don't indicate where you are located or which garden zone you are in so don't know if they are a common pest in your area or not. But that is sure that they look like in the photo.

Check out Spinosad as it has organic approval.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Psyllid Control

I'm in Zone 10, Bay Area/Northern California.

I'm pretty sure I found an adult on my Sweet 100's earlier this morning, so I quickly grabbed a pair of gloves (still too squeamish to touch anything with bare hands :P), yanked it off, and turned it into a greasy spot on the pavement.

I thought they were primarily in So Cal, but I guess they're moving north.

I'll check out Spinosad. I was going to go for malathion, since that's supposed to kill everything, and from what I read, it's worked with the psyllids, but I'm willing to try anything at this point.

Thanks Dave!

Well, I went to the nursery today, and I guess my pictures weren't convincing enough because the woman there took a guess and told me they looked like aphids. Er... ok. Even to my newbie eyes, I could tell these were eggs and not living critters, despite the fact that they were barely even visible to the naked eye.

She called over the resident expert horticulturalist, and he brought over books, and couldn't find anything about psyllids in it, but he was dubious about my claim, stating that psyllids would lay their eggs IN the leaves and the eggs would cause the leaves to bulge out and look gross.

No pictures I saw or articles I read on the internet said THAT about tomato psyllids, so I don't know. On the plus side, he makes house calls! So he'll be coming over, fingers crossed, Tuesday morning to check on things.

Could be russett mites or some sort of mite, I'm in Nor Cal as well and I battle them all the time. They are so small their hard to see with the naked eye. They gradually suck the life out of your plant, but there are treatments.

Damon

Here is a picture of Milkweed aphids. I have never seen the eggs.
I have a KBX tomato next to this milkweed and they have not touched
it. Yours my be something else..

Linda

The main difference between psyllids eggs and the aphids is the location. Psyllid eggs classically are attached to the edge of the leaf - the very edge so that they stick out from the edge like a fringe - and there is a short pedicle that attaches them. The aphids are ON the leaves and stems themselves - the flat surfaces.

And you are right - malathion kills everything, including beneficials that don't need to be killed and shouldn't be killed as they control the bad guys. Always go for the LEAST lethal approach first if possible.

Dave

Honestly, those don't look like psyllids eggs to me. I don't see the tell-tale signs of the plant being sucked by the stinkers. We get them fairly often, one of the few pests I have to deal with, but I don't see the white spots that come with the arrival of psyllids in your pics. I just treat the problem with some garden dust and it usually does the trick after a dusting or two.

roper2008 - the milkweed aphids, aka Oleander aphids, seem to be limited to plants in the Dogbane family Apocynaceae (which includes oleander, and the former milkweed family which is now treated as a subfamily of Apocynaceae). These aphids won't go after tomatoes, and I've heard that they are poisonous to ladybugs as well. Luckily I haven't seen them yet on my Swamp milkweed or butterfly weed this year. We've got one of those ugly milkweed vines in front of our house that usually gets coated in milkweed aphids by mid to late summer.

Before you go crazy with the Malathion, here is the UC Davis recommendation for tomato psyllids, and Malathion is not on it. Spinosad is, however. While you are there, you can look at photos of tomato pests, and maybe get a better idea of what it might be, and confirm or not they're psyllids.
You term yourself a "newbie", so forgive me if I point out that a little insect damage is normal in a garden, and not really a big deal. If you "kill everything" as you say you want to do with the Malathion, you will upset the balance of good and bad bugs, and you could likely end up with an invasion of bad bugs taking over your garden a few weeks later, with nobody left to fight them because you killed all the good bugs. The better way is to support the good bugs, so they can do the job they evolved to do.

Carla in Sac

Here is a link that might be useful: Psyllid management

Spinsad is good stuff. I've used it and the ladybugs keep crawling around doing their good deeds unaffected.

Those sure look the same as the aphids on the milkweed to me. The aphids I get on my vegies sometimes are gray rather than yellow but so tiny that it's difficult to tell if they're a live insect or an egg since they don't move when sucking the juices. Sevin liquid or dust will zap aphids and is not as potent as malathion.

I don't discount that it's possible because they do look similar, but what I found was only really on the edges of one leaf. It wasn't widespread, and it wasn't anywhere on the middles of the leaves or on the stem. Now that I've thrown out that one, it doesn't look like there are any more, however, I did notice some very, very small things that looked like they could be miniscule eggs of the same type. They were so small that they looked like individual grains of pollen though.

I wish it wasn't so hard to depict scale in photos. The leaves of that Sungold really aren't very big, so the eggs were, comparatively, very very small.

I wish it wasn't so hard to depict scale in photos.

Often a coin is included in the photo, sometimes on the top of a large tomato or propped against the stem of fruit still on the vine.

Rulers are also used -- a yardstick might work better in some outdoor situations.

Harvested tomatoes are sometimes photographed on graph paper of a known scale; I suppose graph paper could be used outdoors as well.

Well, the eggs are back on my sungold leaves, and there are many, many more of them this time. I've plucked off several of the branches, and with them I think I managed to possibly capture one or two of the bugs, and have put them into a ziplock baggie with a moist paper towel, and will bring them to my local nursery.

They thought I was insane for thinking they were psyllids - but also didn't seem to know much about psyllids. Your guess is as good as mine as to how THAT works. :P I've only found the eggs on the edges and undersides of the leaves. Nothing on branches or in the middles, and again, the eggs are so, SO tiny that they almost look like pollen. They are far smaller than aphids.

So, I've looked through a bunch of threads here on Gardenweb, and read all the linked articles, most of which I've already read, looking for a way to control the pending infestation, but it seems as though there still isn't much information on how to get rid of these guys. I know I mentioned malathion previously, but have seen an account of Spinosad possibly being effective. Also, many of the posts here, and subsequently, many of the articles that were linked in the posts, are from several years ago, which means that maybe there's some new information available that I haven't uncovered yet, or that maybe someone's had more experience in dealing with these pests.

So far all of my plants are looking healthy, but I've been inspecting things almost daily, and this is the first time I've seen the eggs crop up again since my initial post. I was pretty sure I'd destroyed all those eggs, which means that there probably weren't any nymphs to hatch and give my plant the telltale "psyllid yellows" yet, or else I would post some sad plant photos.

Has anybody uncovered a solution that will kill off the psyllids without devastating the beneficial population? Are my Sungolds, and likely the other 6 plants sharing a bed, doomed?

spaghetina,

You need to help your local nursery catch up on the news.

Seems that tomato psyllids became a problem in CA in 2006

See this news release.
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/NEWS/tomatopsyllids-news.html

Beyond that, different psyllids damage plants differently. Those on Eugenia hedges make bumpy distorted messes of leaves.

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato psyllids arrive in 2006

I'm going to bring in the leaves and really blow their minds, lol. Only problem is, it's full of condensation at the moment because I put it on the hot ground, and it immediately started evaporating the moisture in the paper towel. There are definitely two bugs in there that I think are psyllids. I may have caught them in the act of laying, but if I caught two that easily, it can't mean good things for how many more are likely hiding out there. :(

Maybe I can snap a macro shot, and try to compare it to the photos online. I was so worried that I'd lose them that I hurried and stuffed them into the bag before they could get away.

I was going to call my county extension office, as seems to be recommended often when pests or diseases show up, but I'm not really sure if I should or not, since I'm still not entirely clear what function a county extension office even serves, lol.

Note to self: proofreading is good. What I meant to say was "Only problem is the ziploc bag is full of condensation at the moment..."

You have tomato psyllid eggs. One sure fire way to get rid of them is by hand. They should be easier to remove than aphids and we KNOW how much we love to squish aphids!

You'll be much, much better off if you avoid an wide-spectrum pesticide in your garden. The use of such chemicals often triggers an explosion of even more pest insects due to the damage to the beneficial population.

Attached is an image for your comparison.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1349844}}

Yep, rhizo, that is totally them.

I trekked over the hill to the county extension office today toting my baggie full of bug eggs, and 2 bugs, and the volunteer said they definitely look like the photos she was able to find, but since she doesn't grow tomatoes at all, she couldn't give me a solid confirmation.

The "bug expert" will be in either tomorrow or sometime in the week, and a note was left for her to check out the baggie and then to contact me, so we'll see if I hear from her; my fingers are crossed.

I've been plucking off the affected leaves and grinding them into the pavement with my shoe, but I think from now on, I'll just pinch my fingers together and hope that they're getting crushed. It's so hard to tell because my gloves are blue, and the eggs are so, so small that I wouldn't know if I were just gently caressing them or actually squishing them.

Do you think it'd be ok to go out with a cup of soapy water (Dr. Bronner's peppermint castille soap), and dip my fingers in the solution, then squish, then repeat? Like, just to make sure that if any are stuck to my fingers, they'll get washed off into the soapy water, or at the very least, get coated with the soapy water if they blow or fall off somewhere else?

Rhizo, what's your take on spraying some Spinosad? That shouldn't hurt the good bugs, while supposedly working on the bad ones, right?

I have some mixed feelings about spinosad, just like anything else. Extensive research indicates that it can be a great tool in a careful IPM program, but there is much room for abuse. But, that can certainly be said for any pest control product, organic or otherwise. Spinosad has to be ingested in order to be affective, so care should be taken to avoid pollen and nectar producing plants.

My favorite use of Spinosad is ant BAIT, where the granulated product is quickly carried to the in ground ant nest and passed around (eventually) to the population.

Spinosad is not likely to harm beneficial insects, at least appreciably so. Be sure to read and follow the directions carefully, if you decide to go with Spinosad (or any other product).

Yes, go ahead and smoosh the foliage with a soap and water solution. Don't make it too strong or you'll harm the plant tissue.

P.S. There is NO question that your thingies are tomato psyllid eggs. You did a good job with your research from the very beginning....and the images were great.

Thanks, rhizo! You don't know how good it feels to be getting confirmation on what these things are, instead of those people at the nursery making me feel like I was some kind of idiot plant hypochondriac. You should have heard them. The woman was like, "She has some pictures for you, and she thinks she may have psyllids," and before he'd even finished walking over to me, the guy went, "No, I don't think she does." Hmmph.

I went out this morning, and found another few psyllids, and actually caught two of them in the act of laying their eggs!! I was only able to crush a couple of them because, darnit, they're fast and/or my nitrile gloved hands are clumsy. I walked around and crushed any eggs I saw, but they're pretty tough, in that, even if you take two fingers and pinch along the edge of the leaf and sort of pull at them, sometimes they remain totally intact. I hope I didn't breathe any in. =/

So, from the sounds of it, the spinosad is only going to be good for the nymphs, which means the eggs will actually have to live to become nymphs, and it won't actually kill the already living psyllid population. I'm not sure that's such a good idea because I have other toms in the same bed (although thankfully :knock on wood: I haven't found any eggs or seen any psyllids on them), and I don't want the bugs hopping over.

Do you think DE would work on the adults, and spinosad for the nymphs? Or is that just overkill?

this website mentions insecticidal soap.

"Among insecticides available to homeowners, products containing permethrin or esfenvalerate are most effective when used at rates labelled for other potato/tomato insects. Alternately dusts of sulfur can provide control. Regardless, application must be thorough, covering the underside of lower leaves where the insects tend to concentrate. Insecticidal soaps (two percent concentration) may also be useful, although control is more erratic."

i never heard of these bugs. i thought they were aphids initially.

tom

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato psyllids

Tom, they're so small that if you saw them in person, it'd be hard to mistake them for aphids. That's why the diagnosis at the nursery puzzled me, but of course, it is so hard to figure things out from a photo alone. Even with something there to give an idea of the scale, it's hard to grasp just how small these little eggs are.

I didn't have time to bring my samples to the nursery yesterday, but I think I may go today just to let them know that psyllids are here, and there may be more people coming in to ask about them.

I think I need to get my hands on another of the adults, put him in a bag, and spray him with my homemade soap solution to see if it kills him or not. If it does, I will spray the whole plant. If he just goes swimming and isn't any worse for the wear, I'll start reading up on the effects of DE and sulfur on beneficials.