Whitefly War

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Whiteflies often attack greenhouses and greenhouses that attract them. Since these insects are incredibly fertile, they are able to fill almost the entire space on protected ground in the shortest possible time. Tomatoes are most exposed to their raids, a little less - celery, lettuce and cucumbers, as well as a number of flower and other crops. This parasite is also dangerous for numerous indoor flowers

Who is Whitefly

The whitefly is a rather small insect (only 1.5 mm in length) with a yellowish body and two pairs of powdery white wings, somewhat reminiscent of the wings of flies. The larvae of these parasites are flat, reaching a length of 0.8 mm, pale yellow in color, with red eyes, and live on the undersides of the leaves. Adult whiteflies fly mainly in the zone of the upper parts of the plants. Both larvae and adults feed on juices of various cultures with great pleasure. And their sweetish secretions (which are at the same time products of harmful vital activity), falling on the upper sides of the leaves, quite quickly inhabits a sooty fungus. Accordingly, plants affected by intruders begin to suffer concurrently from the fungus, which contributes to the disruption of leaf assimilation. The damaged leaves curl, turn black, dry out, and due to the shortening of the period of fruit formation, a sharp decrease in yield is also noted.

Most often, whiteflies appear where agricultural technology is poorly observed - if there is poor ventilation or high humidity and temperature in the greenhouse, as well as neglected plantings, the likelihood of an attack by intruders increases markedly.

Whitefly fighting

Whitefly in protected ground conditions (mainly in greenhouses) gives up to 12 generations, developing throughout the year. These insects reach the greatest numbers from the second half of summer until autumn, inclusive. Females lay an average of 130 eggs on the undersides of young leaves (in compact groups of 12).

Since insects periodically pay attention to weeds, first of all, all weeds should be destroyed on the site, if possible. You should not plant near vegetable crops and flower plants that can later become a wintering ground for pests. The doors and vents of greenhouses should be covered with gauze (ideally, in two layers) so that parasites do not have the opportunity to penetrate inside.

Since whiteflies are well washed off with water, you can rinse planted crops with clean water from time to time. After this procedure, you also need to loosen the upper layers of the soil.

An infusion of garlic also gives a good effect: 150 - 170 g of chopped cloves are poured with a liter of water and insisted in a tightly sealed container for five days. Further, for spraying, only 6 g of the prepared concentrate are diluted in one liter of water.

Special drugs such as confidor, fosbecid, verticillin G, mospilan, furanon and actellic can also help in the fight against annoying whiteflies.

Parasite versus parasite

A very good option for dealing with these pests will be a parasitic insect with the outlandish name encarsia. These saviors are grown, as a rule, at regional plant protection stations, as well as in biological laboratories on the territory of various vegetable farms. They can be ordered and purchased there.

Encarsia poses absolutely no danger either to the health of people and animals, or to the crop itself. After the encarzias run out of food (in this case, these are malefic whiteflies), they simply disappear.

Whitefly glue traps

Yellow glue traps are an excellent whitefly control method. To make such traps, they take pieces of plywood or small yellow shields, and then grease them with grease, rosin with honey, petroleum jelly or "lipofix" (this is the name of a special glue). All traps are set at the level of the upper parts of the plants on a twine (periodically they are pulled up as the crops grow). As soon as the glue on the traps begins to dry, the surfaces should be repaired with fresh glue. If the plants are slightly shaken, whiteflies will certainly rush to the traps - the yellow color is very attractive to them.

You can significantly reduce the number of adult whiteflies by covering the soil with aluminum foil and placing as many sticky baits on the trees as possible.