News Release

January 10, 2022 – Sugarcane aphids can cause a lot of damage to crops. They have piercing-sucking mouthparts; their mouth is like a straw they can use to pierce into plant tissue. The January 7, 2022 Sustainable, Secure Food Blog explains the biology behind sugarcane aphids and the damage they can inflict.

According to blogger Sophie Filbert, “grain sorghum, like other plants, has a network of pipe-like structures through which water, nutrients, and sugars constantly flow. When sugarcane aphids use their mouths to puncture through the plant pipelines, they steal away water and sugars that are valuable and necessary to plant health and development. This causes the sorghum plant to be stressed, and can harm yields.”

Sugarcane aphids disrupt the photosynthesis process in plants by sucking out these nutrients. They also cause physical damage to cells when they pierce through plant tissue that disrupts photosynthesis. Eventually, the damaged areas can no longer photosynthesize and have been stripped of all water, sugars, and nutrients, so they die.

Sugarcane aphids also excrete a sugary, sticky substance called “honeydew” onto the plant, which can cause the fungus known as sooty mold. To learn more, read the entire blog: https://sustainable-secure-food-blog.com/2022/01/07/what-damage-do-sugarcane-aphids-do-to-crops/

This blog is based on Ms. Filbert’s Natural Sciences Education paper, published in 2021. Ms. Filbert was awarded the Darrell S. Metcalfe award in student journalism for her paper from the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and the Soil Science Society of America.