SC - whitefly control

[Jeff Heilveil]

I missed the question due to thesis tremors, however whitefly control is
relatively simple.  There are a few things that you can do about it,
without resorting to nasty insecticides (which are all nasty).  If you can
see the insect, you can spray it with soapy water, as suggested.  However,
this only works if the soap hits the insect.  Soap on the leaves will not
stop any insect.  What happens here is that the soap breaks up the waxy
cuticle that protects the insect from dessication and it dries up and
dies.

You can also order "whitefly killers," a type of ladybird beetle whose
larvae primarily eat whitefly larvae.  You need to be careful with the
source though.  Sometimes they collect the ladybugs from mountain tops
when they are hibernating and when they become active in your yard they
do what they always do.... fly straight up into the air currents to be
dispersed.  So make sure you get them from a large supplier who will most
likely be growing their own (like rolling your own and yet... not).  

Lastly, there are a HUGE number of IPM (Integrated Pest Management)
websites out there that are happy to supply people with various
predator/parasitoid species to help in the control of your specific pest
(regardless of the pest.  if there is an insect somewhere, there's another
one out there that eats or parasitizes it).  Make sure to shop around for
the best price.

Lastly, you can contact your local Land Grant College to get more
information, as most of them have IPM programs.  If you don't have access
to some of these sources, please feel free to send me a private email and
I can get you in touch with some of the people at U of Illinois who
specialize in non-insecticide control of greenhouse pests, of which
whitefly is one.

Hope this helps.
Jeff Heilveil

(Bogdan de la Brasov would know _none_ of this.  He lived in the time
period where you either hand picked off pests, you wipped a blade with a
beaver pelt, smeared it in bear blood and then cut off the part of the
plant with the pest [thanks goes to Pliny for this method of killing off
Grape Phylloxera], or somesuch.  It's better than when a bishop in 1615 or
so went out into the middle of a field and told the caterpillars there
that they had 3 days to vacate the field or they would be excommunicated.
>From what we learned of the outcome, they must have been Jewish
caterpillars. He should have looked for the little tiny Kippot on their
heads...) 


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Jeffrey Heilveil M.S.		      Ld. Bogdan de la Brasov, C.W.
Department of Entomology	A Bear's paw and base vert on field argent
University of Illinois		    	  
heilveil at uiuc.edu			     
office: (217) 244-5115
home: (217) 355-5702		       
ICQ: 34699710 	             

Once one dismisses the rest of all possible worlds, one finds that this is
the best of all possible worlds.
				 -Voltaire, _Candide_
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