Tap the leaves and, as a cloud of flies
up, suck them up with a small car vacuum cleaner - take care! or you'll damage
your tender little pants.
Whiteflies are also attracted to yellow
paper, so you could try hanging strips of sticky yellow card which the whitefly
stick to - these are available commercially and if you think you have whitefly
will become covered surprisingly quickly. They also serve as a good early warning
for if you suspect that you will get whitefly.
Avoiding whitefly on tomatoes without the use of chemicals.
Plant French Marigolds (Tagetes) between your tomato plants to keep those pesky
Whitefly away. It's not that the Whitefly particularly don't like these marigolds,
it's because the pungent smell from the marigolds masks the nice smell of the
tomatoes that usually attract the Whitefly.
Another option is to go for biological
control. Biological control of a pest relies on introducing a predator species
so "fighting nature with nature", if chosen carefully, the predator will stop
damage to your plants without damaging the environment. Such biological controls
are safe for the user, children and pets. They will not harm other beneficial
garden insects and are biodegradable.
They do rely on the predator always having some food though, or they will
die out, so like other organic practices it is a question of maintaining a small
population of pests to allow the predators to be ready for them, in this case
though the balance is skewed away from the problem.
The biological control for whitefly is the parasitic wasp,
Encarsia formosa. These minute little wasp's parasitise the whitefly
pupae. This turns the pupae black after a period of about 10-14 days depending
on temperature. From these pupae will emerge Encarsia formosa instead of whitefly
therefore controlling them. One wasp in the right conditions can parasitise
up to 150 whitefly scales. These wasps are harmless to all other insects and
animals
For effective control, regular introductions should be carried out.
Encarsia is only suitable for glasshouses and conservatories.
Encarsia needs a 24 hour average temperature in the glasshouse of at
least 17°C
Natural
Pest Control - Whitefly Killer 1 treatment - Top Up
£10.99
Natural Pest Control - Whitefly Killer 3 treatments
£24.99
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If
your
plants get a heavy infestation, then I think it's acceptable to use
a chemical insecticide as a "smart missile" just on that particular
plant. I resort to this when
the aphids build up under cover on my favourite plum tree, or other plant/s.