Apple Grain Aphid Apple Grain Aphid Click Open to view a picture. Close the current picture before viewing another. Drawing of adult Adults on leaf Apple grain aphid, Rhopalosiphum fitchii , rarely causes damage to apples, but it is the first aphid to appear on apples in spring and may appear in large, but innocuous, numbers. This aphid overwinters as an egg on apple and related trees and moves to grass and grain hosts for the spring and summer. Overwintering eggs are shiny black and hard to indistinguish from the eggs of green aphids and rosy apple aphids, but usually hatch around silver tip or about 7 to 10 days earlier than the others.
Nymphs are dark green with a light-colored stripe running down the back.
This stripe darkens as the aphid gets older. Apple grain aphids are distingished from other species by antennae much less than half the body length and very short cornicles. In the fall, aphids return to apple trees, produce sexual forms, mate, and lay eggs. Monitoring and management Monitoring and management of this species is unnecessary since it rarely causes a problem.