White flies

[Northernfox]

My garden in the basement has been hit by these white flies. They seem to feed on the leafs of my peppers and the stem of my strawberries.

I know improbably wont win this battle but I would appreciate some help fighting them back.

[applestar]

I admit to not having a serious problem with them indoors before, but on the whole, I think three best lines of attack are --

(1) disturbing them and vacuuming ones that fly up out of the air.
(2) spraying foliage and soil surface with soapy water (remember to rinse spray after 10-20 min)
(3) sticky traps -- I believe whiteflies are attracted to white and light blue (?)

With mine, once they can go outside, the predators seem to get the pests (aphids, whiteflies, Spidermites, etc.), so I can't wait for the weather to warm up enough.

[Dillbert]

spray 2x daily with insecticidal soap.

[Northernfox]

The attack is on. I don't see any harm to my plants yet I just want to keep them under control until they can go outside in just under a month.

Should I spray and rinse once a day twice a day or every once in awhile ?

[Dillbert]

spray, do not rinse, twice a day.
until you no- see'em no more.

be sure to spray _under_ the leaves; that's where they hide.
for small plants I usually grab the pot and turn it upside down to spray.

these things multiple like crazy.

[Northernfox]

I see that. Unfortunately they are in Earth boxes already ;(

Why should I not rinse ? Won't the soap residue hurt my plants ?

[Dillbert]

if you are using a real "insecticidal soap" no - there will be no harm.

if you are following the modern day wives tale using "dishwater" then you may stunt or kill the plants. detergents are not soaps.

[Northernfox]

I guess I'll have to go get some thanks !

[applestar]

Right. I usually mix up a home made solution from Dr. Bronner's liquid soap which is real soap and not detergent. Find it's better to rinse them off after they have smothered the bugs because the residue can get concentrated under the lights.

[IndyGerdener]

I now have white flies in my grow room... I fear doing anything to my plants. even if I am almost sure they will survive. My history shows good intentions bring bad results

[Northernfox]

There was some damage to my leafs probably not helped by the pracsus (sp?) pruning

So far so good though. I think I'll just leave them now. Ill have them outside in just over 3 weeks and nature can take care of them for me.

[IndyGerdener]

(Praxxus)

That is what I thought too. and soon enough I will have my garage door open to expose my plants to nature!! My tobacco is sprouting and in a couple months I will be able to use it to control them too

[Northernfox]

What does tabaco do? Is it a pest controller? Does it compost well after?

[IndyGerdener]

I have never used it, but from what I am reading it is a natural insecticide

[Dillbert]

>>what does it do?

tobacco contains nicotine.
nicotine is a nerve poison.

nicotine sulfate is an old time pesticide. most who used it are dead.

you will find many 'homespun' recipes on how to soak tobacco products - cig/cigar butts into an insecticidal spray.

be aware, nicotine is promptly / readily absorbed through (human) skin and it's not particularly difficult to kill yourself preparing/using/handling the stuff.

[Northernfox]

Probably going to leave it out of my garden lol

[imafan26]

I found one of the hibiscus plants infested with white flies. I cut the hibiscus and bagged the leaves. I have been checking my peppers and so far they look ok, so for now I think I am ahead of them. I have corn tasseling now and that will help because corn has always attracted the purple lady bugs that eat a lot of white flies.

I found a few whiteflies on eggplant in the green house, so I hosed them off. It will be much harder to contain them there.

White flies are a problem every two years. It has to do with the predator prey cycle. The purple ladybugs are the main controllers of the whiteflies and when their populations are down the white flies goes up.
I haven't had much luck controlling white flies chemically in the past, and its really been working out for me not to use anything. So, my approach this year will be to monitor, encourage the ladybugs to move in, keep the plants as healthy as I can, cut my losses and cut any plants that are really infested.

Unfortunately, if I resort to spraying, I will have what I have in the front yard, pests I always have to keep spraying to control. My front yard has ornamentals, gardenia and roses. It is very hard to control pests on gardenia and roses without resorting to chemicals.

That being said, since I am having so much better results not using pesticides, I am trying to bring back the beneficials to the front yard by planting companion plants. I have nectar plants but the beneficial insects avoid them because they have been treated with systemics. I have switched from the one year imodiclopid to the six week systemic rose control, which I only resorted to when I had no choice. I have not used that in about a month. I am hoping to go pesticide free shortly but it may mean that I will have to replace some plants that are very heavily infested but also some very old roses. I also have a nice hibiscus but I will either have to tolerate the erineum gall mites disfiguring all of the leaves and hoping the plant survives that until the gall mites are done for the summer, or I will need to remove the plant.

[lily51]

White flies are attracted to bright yellow. You can buy yellow sticky traps and holders from many garden supply catalogs. A few showed up one winter when I decided to let a tomato plant get as large as possible in my greenhouse. I made my own yellow traps with bright yellow poster board and coating the card-sized traps with a thin layer of vasoline, but you can use an oil that lasts and would hold flies to surface.

Now I let my greenhouse rest until it's time for plants in the spring.

[Northernfox]

I suffered through and as soon as my plants were outside they did much better. I will have to show you the havoc they did on my hot peppers. Although it was only certain varieties that did poorly.

Ill post a little video later

[gater]

I have this issue as well but my plants are outdoors.
I have noticed small white specs on my cayenne peppers and upon cutting open the pepper, have found a small larvae eating the pepper from the inside.
Any thoughts?

[Northernfox]

I am not sure. My white flies did not eat the fruit just the leafs. The predators outside made short work of them and I have not seen any since.

Are your plants inside or out ?

[imafan26]

Yeah peppers, hibiscus and poinsettias are white fly magnets. I have cut back the hibiscus because I know it will grow back. I have also been hosing off the undersides of the pepper and basil leaves every time I water and that seems to be holding them at bay. The corn has a few purple lady bugs happily eating the white flies and I have found white flies on the weeds. I'm letting the white flies have the weeds. Better there than on my peppers. I am pulling and bagging the weeds as I go, it has been raining a lot for summer and the weeds have been going gangbusters. In fact it is raining now and there is a flash flood warning for the Windward side of the island. Unfortunately it means the grass will need weed whacking again soon. The good thing about strong rain is that it does knock a lot of the white flies off the plants.

[gater]

My plants were all outdoors in pots.

[Cola82]

My plants are all outside and I've been seeing a lot of white flies, too, but I think it's because they're under a covered patio. We get wind, but not probably not enough. If your plants are in a place without a lot of air moving through, that could be why they're so attracted to it.

I just spend a little time going through all my plants crushing the flies and wiping their eggs off the leaves and it seems to keep their numbers down. I haven't seen any juveniles. I feel a little bad, though, because the flies themselves are actually really cute.

[Northernfox]

I was forced to treat mine with DR.Doom. It was not ideal but that stuff worked well. Three treatments and bam gone.