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white flies

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Posted by Glorysbrite z6PA-Berks (My Page) on
Mon, Nov 8, 04 at 14:28

I am wondering how to treat my African daisy before bringing it in the house for the winter. It has some white flies on it & i don't want them spreading to my other indoor plants. I'm experimenting--i don't even know if i can overwinter an African daisy, but i have a sunroom with a southern exposure where i'm planning to keep it 'til spring.

Thanks for your help.

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RE: white flies

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Do you have quite a few indoor plants? Have you ever had to fight a whitefly infestation before? I'm sure that you will get plenty of good advice here...including mine! I wouldn't bring a plant into the home with a history of whitefly. They are very difficult to get rid of in a short period of time.....eggs hatch out at different times, nymphs are difficult for most folks to identify, etc. I can't use chemical pesticides at all so I do not hesitate to dispose of any plant that has become infested with something I cannot control with rubbing alcohol, soaps, or botanicals.

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RE: white flies

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Place yellow colored sticky traps near the plant to trap any adults that fly around and spray any nymphs you can see with insecticidal soap. It may take 2, 3 maybe 4 weeks before the plant is pest free.

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RE: white flies

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I found some bright yellow, plastic putty knives at Home Depot and coated them with a light coat of Vaseline.

They filled up with bugs really fast but all you have to do is wipe them off and apply more Vaseline. This was a lot cheaper than buying commercial yellow bug collectors.

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RE: white flies

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I found information on making the sticky traps from the University of Mo. Extension service. the traps should be used for inside plants only and do not use the sticky traps on outside plants because birds could fly into them and get stuck or at the very least their feathers could be coated with sticky substance.

This is how you make them;
cut a a 12-by-6 inch piece of cardboard or strong poster board and paint it bright yellow (you can buy yellow poster board also). Then coat it with a sticky substance, such as Tanglefoot, petroleum jelly, petroleum jelly/mineral oil mix, mineral oil or a heavy- grade motor oil (SAE 90). Hang the trap vertically or support it on stakes just above the plants. The adults are attracted to the yellow color and become trapped on the sticky substance.
i am making these to hang around my inside plants but I am going to use double sided tape on mine to see how that works. i do like the idea of coating the putty knife also with vaseline. I do want to caution people not to use these on outside plants if they attract birds.

Penny

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RE: white flies

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I've also heard about taking a large clear pastic bag (as in for trash), placing the whole pot inside , closing it up and leaving it like that for two days. Supposedly the oxygen runs out and the whiteflies die, but then you may have to do it several times in a row to get the eggs that hatch afterwards. I tried this but didn't keep up with it. It doesn't hurt the plants though.

I definitely can see where rhizo 1 is coming from on this....I had a white fly infestation last winter , the first ever, and I learned my lesson. It's just not at all easy to get rid of them - unless you do something radical and maybe chemical (which I was not going to do). I too would now not ever bring a plant in that had white fly history *unless it had gone completely dormant in cold weather for several months first.

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RE: white flies

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Have you tried using Earthworm Castings in the soil as a type of systemic control? For some reason, White Flies won't lay their eggs on plants that have had Earthworm Castings mixed into the soil…We had the most horrid case of WF infestation in our Hibiscus plants until I did this. Now? None of that nasty white, fluffy stuff. :) If I even see a hint of WF, I go and spread more castings around. I use it in all of my pots and all around the garden. I try to use the castings on a regular basis. It doesn't burn the plants either and provides additional nutrients. :)

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