Thursday, September 22, 2011

Whitefly


As you walk through your garden or pick a flower have you ever noticed a flurry of little white specs floating in the air? Perhaps you thought, there are those darn eye floaters again or you said to yourself "Look at the albino mosquitoes!" Well darling you probably have whiteflies on your plant. If you squint real hard you may see the whitefly in the right hand corner of the baggie in the above pictures.
The whitefly is a common garden pest. It is moth like and is only about an 1/8 of an inch long. It lives on the underside of the plant leaf and sucks out the sap leaving yellowed and spotted foliage behind. If the infestation is serious enough it can weaken the plant to the point it may die.

Spraying the plant is the only option as it is impossible, I believe, to try to pick these little guys off. I am using the spray I recommended 2 posts ago, the oil, soap and water.
The whiteflies are on my Dahlia plants and although the leaves are very spotted I do have flowers. I believe this is the first time I have had a problem with whiteflies, however I have had a lot of eye floaters in the past....hmmm. So have you had a whitefly problem and if so how did you solve it?


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