Fruit growing
and viticulture of South Russia

Annotation

The gray apple aphid is quite widespread on the territory of Russia and neighboring countries, however, there is still no its cartographic description in the literature in this territory, which is important in predicting the number of the vermins, and it became the task of our work. The paper presents a map of the distribution and zone of harmfulness of the Gray Apple or red-ball aphid Dysaphis devecta Walk. along the territory of Russian Federation and neighboring countries. It was created on the basis of analysis of literature sources, own observations and data on catching aphids by water traps in the fruit orchards. The information about the biology and ecology of the species is also presented and with the using of yellow water traps, the Northern border of the district was clarified. It runs along the Saint-Petersburg (Gatchina, Luga regions) � Yaroslavl, then the line goes to East along the Northern border of apple orchards. No insects of this species were found in traps in the North regions. Grey Apple aphids are found in the Baltic area, Belarus, and the European part of Russia. The zone of Grey Apple aphids harmfulness includes the Southern and Eastern parts of Ukraine, Moldova, the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, where the vermin periodic damage of plants is 2 points, in some foci the damage degree is 3 points. This is an industrial gardening area. The Grey Apple aphid is found in the Urals, in Western and Eastern Siberia, but the reproduction intensity of species in this territory is low due to the long winter period with temperatures below -20 ºC and low humidity. In some years, a small number of apple aphid is observed in Central Asia and Kazakhstan, where the summer temperatures above 30 ºC, with low humidity, have a detrimental influence the population.