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Little White Flies

Hi All,

I have little White Flies... we are talking smaller than 1mm that are sitting on the leaves of the chillies and especially underneath the Tomato leaves. When I lift the leaves they fly around like fruit flies.... but these are much much smaller and are white white white.

Please don't ask me for pictures... I haven't got a camera with macro.

I have a hunch these are the White Fly you guys keep talking about... or maybe something else.

I am using neem oil on regular basis but does not seem to deter them...

What are they/could they be and what danger are they to my chillies?

Thanks

PeriPeri
 
Yep, I would say whiteflies. ;)

I find things like Neem and other oils aren't really great at keeping away the whiteflies themselves but they sure do help control the nymphs. Maybe you could try sticky traps or something?
 
If you shake the plant and it appears to be "snowing" you've got whiteflies.......yellow sticky cards help corral them up.....
Insecticidal soap sprayed periodicly will also help......if you plan to stay Organic...
 
I used a product called eco-oil that worked. The trick is to get them before they fly away because they move fast. Get a pressure sprayer and observe where they are carefully without rousing them. Then pump it up and start coating the leaves, both sides. Always keep an eye for any that try to flee and when they do get them with the sprayer. I did this once and then again a few days later to get any new ones that had hatched and it got rid of them. It also helped that I didn't use nasty chemicals and had a spider web set up next to the plants which caught a whole bunch. They especially hide under the leaves in big colonies.
 
+1 what Megamoo said. Make sure you are adding some mild dish soap to your Neem oil solution. Make sure you are treating the underside of the leaves. Plan to repeat the process a few times.

Are you talking about just a few plants or a large scale? FWIW, I used a spray mixer that hooks to a garden hose to treat a 20-ft tall Oregon Grape tree. I put dish soap only in the mixer. This allowed me to blast the little buggers from below, and shoot them out of the sky! I thoroughly coated everything to the point of sudsing the dang tree. What a drippy mess. Repeated every day for 3 or 4 days. Got em. Tree survived with just a few leaves showing some burned edges. Keep in mind this was not peppers or tomatoes, but I think they could handle a soaping, also--start in moderation to see. Make sure it is a mild soap--Ivory gets mentioned a lot, if that is available in So. Africa. good luck.... :cool:


:cool:
 
Hi Guys,

Thanks for the tips. I will give it a try first thing tomorrow morning before it gets too hot here. I see them hiding under the leaves and have seen how quickly the fly off... not going to be easy... and only got a 2 litre sprayer, but a few treatments will hopefully sort them out. Buggers!!


Thanks

PeriPeri
 
I went to Lowes and got some liquid death... Nuked everything and haven't had an issue since, took about 12 hours and haven't seen one since.

-J
 
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Just have them a blasting from :hell: with the mother load of double strength local organic insecticide (Canola Oil, Garlic,Pyrethrins & Piperonyl butoxide). Them mother's tried to fly but they never saw it coming! Hehe...

I can report - "all is quiet on the western front!"

In two days time I will lock and load again!
 
They're back. Not many, but they're back.

If I sprayed yesterday can I spray again tomorrow??

It depends on what it says on the bottle. I've had one say three or four days and another say one week. You want to give the eggs time to hatch so you can catch all of them as well.
 
Thanks Megamoo, you're quite right. It says max 3 times in 10 days... but I had not considered the eggs hatching... Good point!
 
I just noticed these same little bastards all over my lemon tree seedlings, and it looks like they're spreading. :(
 
I have fruit trees outside my house and I had my peppers nearby and think I picked up aphids and white flies from them. I never thought of sticky tape... just a vacuum hehe
 
i noticed that white flies love hibiscus, here in CA, i used a systemic on the hibiscus and well since i did that i have not seen one aphid or white fly on the hibiscus. you could always sacrafice the one tomato plant and use a systemic and let all them just feed and die! and keep that one tomato plant alive as the decoy! LOL
 
You need to add some soap not detergent, Ivory or Murphy's it helps the neem to stick to the plants and the bugs. spray in the mornings every other day for two weeks bugs will be gone
 
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