Whiteflies

Smokin Moose

Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex Moderator
Whiteflies are very small insects that resemble tiny white moths. Whiteflies usually feed on the lower surface of their host plant leaves. Whiteflies differ from most insects in the way they mate (side by side) and that their eggs absorb water from the host leaf after the eggs are inserted into the lower surface. From the egg hatches a minute crawler stage that moves about the leaf until it inserts its microscopic, threadlike mouthparts to feed by sucking sap from the phloem. Adults and nymphs excrete honeydew, a sticky, viscous liquid in which dark sooty molds grow. Because many species of adult whiteflies are similar in appearance, entomologists use the last nymph stage for specific identification. In 1986, a whitefly very similar to the sweetpotato whitefly suddenly became a noticeable pest of poinsettias and commercial vegetables in Florida and California. This whitefly spread throughout the greenhouse industry in the United States in the next few years and is now the most frequently encountered whitefly pest of poinsettia and gerbera daisy. In 1994, Bellows and Perring described this whitefly as a new species, the silverleaf whitefly. The silverleaf whitefly causes the leaves of melons and stems of poinsettias to blanch noticeably when these whiteflies are abundant.
 
I'm not sure what these little buggers are . They look like a tiny little gnat, I've had them on my other house plants in the past and have been using mild dish soap and water mix to try and eliminate. This does not seem to be working. I know someone out there knows. You all have been Great in the past with all of my other Questions.
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I have the same little black Nats in my indoor grow room. I just sprayed the room with a "organic" house pest control but I am regrowing cut pants. They apeared right before I cut the plants down. I would also like to know of these are harmfull and how they damage the plant and what to use. Thanks!!
 
I have been using green palmolive dish soap diluted in water (one tsp of soap to one gallon of water) for years. Use the green, because there is no perfumes in it. This takes care of black gnats, white flies, spider mites, and aphids. It is safe for the plants (any plant) and cheap and easy to get.
 
White flys are insidious and tougher to control. I have seen heavily infested tomato fields that require multiple applictions for even acceptable contorl levels. I think that one of the problems with control is that they are so darned mbile. Unlike aphids or spidermites that tend to sink their proboscus into a plant and feed away. White flies flee even as a trctor approaches and then relight when the danger has passed. I know that when their population icreases they can be devastating to any plants vigour and harvest potential.

If you get them into a grow room you need to do a complete erradication and between crops. I do this anyway as a matter of course. An ounce of prevention is really worth a POUND of cure when it comes to keeping your grow rooms healthy!
 
uptheholler, what do you mean by a "complete eradication"? I am only growing 2 plants at a time but those whiteflies are still a nuisance. Spider mites are easy to get rid of compared to these buggers. I use SM-90 for Spider Mites and that works well and also foliar feeds the plants.

I have used Castille Soap spray with some luck but never get them all, so a week later they are back. I also tried "horticultural oil" which did not seem to do much.

I hang the sticky fly catcher strips and they pick up a LOT but still they persist.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
greetings. if i might intrude on the post. i am battling these same little white beasts. i`m a novice, i didn`t notice them infesting a plant til it was so noticeable that i`m now afraid of ruining it. it`s maybe only a couple weeks away from harvest. before my treatment last night, it still had a lot of white pistils and the reds weren`t curled in yet. still has some beefing up to do, but i panicked and researched and doused her first with just the hose with as hard a spray as i could just putting my finger over a weak water pressure, and then with a spray of a biodegradable soap and water (i had expert opinions on the type of soap and dosage and all), but what i`m worried about is that the advice i read was to not get any on the buds. some buds were covered in this pest. i just doused the whole entire plant and others for prevention. now i notice the almost ripe one has zero white hairs. i must have blown them off with the hose, and it`s just full of red hairs. so i don`t know if this is going to come back to flowering and continue or if i`ve ruined it or what. it still has some of the pest on some of the leaves underneath, but i did a good job of getting the majority off. now i`m told to do the same wash with neem oil...once a week with soap and water, once a week with neem oil. then i read i can rinse the buds upon harvesting. so this is what happened and what i`ve done and what i`m planning to do from now. any advice would be greatly appreciated. fyi, i can`t get my hands on all those brandname products i`ve seen recommended, impossible, just chemical stuff and some organic like neem oil. not a garden center within many many hours from here.
 
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