Small White Fly's

[Chris & Jessie Davis]

Could someone please help me by telling me how to get rid of these small white fly's on the undersides of my tomatos leaves as well as several outdoor ornamental plants. Thanks for any help you might have. Chris

[Pat Kiewicz]

Vacuum them off the top of the plants; put the vacuum bag in the freezer to kill the flies.

Wash the young crawlers off with a strong spray of water. Do it in the morning, at least three times, every other day. You could also try spraying a mix of soap and seaweed to kill them.

Yellow stick traps placed in between the plants will catch them (but may also catch beneficial insects).

There is a predatory insect that can be purchased for whitefly control in the greenhouse, _Encarsia formosa_.

Plants that are short of phosphorous are said to be particularly prone to attract whitefly. Plants that are well-supplied with magnesium are less attractive.

[Noydb]

I use these traps every year and they seem to do the job just fine.

Just cut a sheet of yellow poster board into strips, fasten them in your garden somehow about 12" off the ground and smear with a bit of Tree Tanglefoot or similar product.

Weak plants have a yellow tinge to the leaves that the whiteflys can see. Normally this means an easy meal for them. Unless, of course, the "leaf" is actually a strip of paper with goo smeared on it.

Bill

[Jan Flora]

Vaseline on yellow card stock will work too.

Jan

[Noydb]

Great suggestion! I'm out of TreeTanglefoot and was spraying the strips with 3M adhesive spray. :-)

Tanks! Bill

BTW, a week after placing the strips in my garden, I can no longer raise up a cloud of whiteflys by brushing against my beans. One thing I bumped into (in Pat K's response) was that the whiteflys are a "bio-indicator" in that their presence suggests a soil mineral shortage (phosporous / magnesium). Perhaps it's time to reach for the Epsom salts.

[Chris & Jessie Davis]

Thanks all for the advice . I"m going out today to try out the yellow paper and adhesive . Chris