Aleyrodida whitefly - a family of small flying herbivorous insects, about one and a half thousand species. There are about 20 species in the European part of Russia. It is not difficult to confuse whitefly on plants - you touch the plant, and small white midges fly off it. Whiteflies are very depressing plants, and easily spread in the garden and on indoor flowers.
This is a small white midge, clearly visible to the naked eye and similar to a reduced moth - its body is up to 2 mm long, 2 pairs of white wings. One female lays about 20 eggs at a time, usually on the underside of the leaf. Greenish larvae are mobile and settle on the underside of the leaves, suck out cell juice and leave sugary secretions.
Whiteflies develop best at a temperature of + 21-27S and air humidity of 60-75%.
Insect with incomplete transformation, bisexual. The period of one generation is 30-40 days. It has several stages:
- Egg - 0.25 mm on average
- Larvae - about 0.3-0.9 mm, of different ages, the last stage is puparia (pupa),
- Adults - up to 1.5-2 mm long:
- Female - 1-1.3 mm
- Male - 1.5-2 mm
Greenhouse or greenhouse whitefly Trialeurodes vaporarium - a pest of indoor and garden plants, especially harms in industrial greenhouses that function all year round - multiplies continuously. In the gardens does not winter, dies.
Cabbage whitefly Aleyrodes proletella is slightly larger, but adults (adults) and puparia calmly overwinter in mid-latitudes.
Slightly noticeable whitish or yellowish spots appear on the leaves. The affected leaves curl, turn yellow and fall. Begonia, fuchsia, balsamine, hibiscus and other indoor plants are especially affected.
Photo of whiteflies
How to deal with whiteflies
Flying insects are always a big threat because they spread easily in greenhouses and around the house. Therefore, as soon as it became clear that whitefly harms your flowers - the closest attention to all plants. Look at the axils of the leaves and the back of the leaf, at home for reliability it is better to treat all the plants that you have. In the garden, the first thing to do is to weed out large weeds, the whitefly especially likes to settle on celandine bushes.
Fortunately, you can fight whiteflies with systemic drugs - these are actara, confidor, tanrek, apaches. When watered with a soil solution in a pot, these insecticides are absorbed and spread throughout the plant's vascular system. Pests suck juice, poison and die. But for greater reliability, it is necessary to simultaneously water the ground under the plants and spray the leaves. You need to know that systemic drugs (actara, confidor, tanrek, apache) do not have ovicidal activity - they are not effective if the plant has a non-feeding stage - pest larvae. And the duration of the egg stage in whiteflies is on average 10-26 days (in the temperature range of 18-22 ° C). Also, actara (and other systemic) does not affect the larvae of the whitefly of the 4th age - pupa (puparia), since they do not yet feed on the juice of the leaves. Therefore, the treatment from the whitefly must be repeated, after 2-3 days at home (when the temperature is above 20-22 ° C. In the garden at a temperature of about 15-17 ° C (it is always colder at night), spraying must be repeated after 5-7 days, since the development cycle is longer. But if the weather is very hot, then against whiteflies in the garden or garden you need to spray in 3-5 days. If necessary, carry out three to four treatments.
Insecticides from whiteflies of intestinal contact action: fufan, carbofos, agravertin, acarine, actellic, inta-vir, Bona forte, decis, inta-vir, mospilan, phytoverm, pegasus, fosbecid, tarzan, etc. (see drugs).
Remove affected and yellowed leaves in a timely manner. It is also advisable to hang ordinary sticky fly traps near plants. And if conditions allow (there are no children, animals and an aquarium in the house), spraying dichlorvos or turning on the fumigator from flies and mosquitoes around the clock helps to cope with flying insects (isolate plants on the balcony for 2 days or close them in the bathroom when you leave for work and turn on the fumigator.
Myrtus: "I grew last year tomatoes "Balcony Miracle," it really is a miracle! Our harvest was decent, all the plants were simply strewn with clusters, each piece of 10 fruits the size of mirabelle . There was a lot of seedlings, but the white wing attacked the tomatoes, within 3 days it spread to all plants. The green soap solution with onion infusion helped. Sprayed liberally with this solution while the berries were green , the whitefly disappeared for the rest of the summer."
How to deal with whiteflies by folk methods
In addition to insecticides, folk remedies can be used to combat whiteflies. This is justified if the whitefly attacked vegetables, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens. Since all chemicals remain in the tissues of the leaf for up to 30 days, vegetables, berries or fruits must be treated with safe means that can be easily washed off with running water.
- Yarrow tincture: boil 100 g of dried pharmacy grass with 1 liter of boiling water, leave for a day, add 1 drop of liquid soap. Strain, spray vegetables or berries.
- Dandelion roots tincture: boil 80 g of crushed dandelion roots with 1 liter of boiling water, leave for a day, add 1 drop of liquid soap. Strain, spray vegetables or berries.
Do not wash off the infusions of herbs, if it rains, spray again immediately, if it does not rain, spray after 3 days, then after 5 days.
Ash dusting helps from whitefly. You need to spray the leaves and spray the ash in a thin layer through a sieve through a humid environment.
Hang sticky fly traps on fruit trees and in greenhouses. Place a smouldering spiral fumigator under each tree or shrub. The fumigator must be left for a long time, it is better to turn on from morning to evening while you are in the garden, the next day again, and so on for several days in a row, since feeding individuals are constantly hatching from larvae.
Whitefly on houseplants, how to fight
Jakonya: I brought the actor out. Other drugs should be sprayed on the leaves, and at the same time spray all the plants in the house. Whitefly flies everywhere. It is, of course, more convenient to use the aktara, they watered and all things.
MAHA: Bona Forte is a wonderful whitefly drug. She also used the actellic and Aktara. Somewhere I read that it is better to carry out the processing several times and by different means .
evridika: They advised me such a drug: "ecomix-aroma protection," the composition is not described, but it is indicated that this is a complex of spicy herbs treated with wormwood-lemon essential oil with the addition of an immunostimulant. All this beauty needs to be steamed and economic soap added. It helps, but only as prevention.
Kalinka: There was a case, I bought fuchsia in the summer, but she turned out to be only a sore throat...
It seems that I immediately sprayed with phytoverm, but everyone who lived on it was not upset. And after one chemistry I was immediately afraid of something else.
Then I put cardboard cups in a pot (cut out from egg packages), and fresh crushed garlic in the cups. And then the whole plant was covered with a garbage bag (it is large and light). I kept fuchsu in the garlic aroma for a week, only aired in the evening. Whitefly died. All this time, fuchsia was in quarantine, standing in the kitchen, almost all the time under an open window. Fuchsia + 10 is not scary, and the whitefly really does not like it.
Now she feels good, she had small leaves when buying, and new ones were already grown with burdocks. I.e. all these parasites pulled out all the juices from her, and now she is rid of them, and grows to my delight. I do not regret the money spent on the struggle (medicines cost more than the flower itself), nor strength. Everyone advised to "throw away and forget," but I still fought.
alga: Processed from the whitefly Bona forte, I don't see anyone yet, I hope all the bastards left my little ones alone!
Freya: Double watering with an actara (with an interval of 7 days) without any spraying completely destroyed this abomination!
Helenn: Today I bought haupsin biosecurity (in the form of a solution) - "a microbiological drug to protect indoor flowers from fungal diseases and pests: spider mite, shield, aphid, whitefly, black spot, gray rot, leafworm, powdery mildew, scab, root rot, bacteriosis, blight, macroscyrosis, ascochytosis, verticillosis, septoriosis, fusariosis, helminthosporiosis. Non-toxic to humans, warm-blooded animals and beneficial insects." Good as prevention.
Jull: I brought out the whitefly by regular (frequent) washing of leaves, followed by spraying alternately with a tar soap solution and garlic infusion. And at night the mosquito fumigator was turned on (it was in the summer).