Where direct harm is evident, the aim will be to protect the sensitive stages of the plant, by preventing populations from reaching numbers that would enable them to wreak serious quantifiable damage. If viral diseases are involved, the main thrust will be to limit as much as possible the introduction of viruses into an unaffected plot by alate aphids that might land there, then prevent their secondary spread by aphids produced on that land.

The fact that aphid outbreaks are sporadic and difficult to predict often means that insecticide treatments are poorly timed, inapprpopriately applied and used systematically, encouraged by their low cost. Utilization of such products is thus much higher than is justified by the incidence of aphids. Such a method is no longer in phase with the expectations of present-day society either. Aphid control must be in tune with to the risk incurred. There is a choice of different strategies for doing that:  rational chemical control, integrated control, variety-based control, biological control and ecological control.