Whiteflies , or white bugs , may be very tiny insect , but swarm of these soft - bodied , winged bugs can speedily vex a major scourge to tomato industrial plant in greenhouse and outdoor scope . Fortunately it is potential to manage most infestations by combining confining monitoring , other intervention and hire the appropriate control methods .
Definition
whitefly are midget garden pests that belong to the same family of insects as aphid , ordered series and mealybugs . They are no bombastic than one - sixteenth of an in long and take care very alike to moth . The most common types of whitefly are silverleaf and greenhouse varieties . Both type are prolific and since the female can lay up to 400 eggs at a sentence , populations can rapidly spiral out of control without intercession and get massive impairment to tomato plants and other appendage of the nightshade family .
Life Cycle
distaff whiteflies lie in between 200 and 400 conical eggs on the undersides of Lycopersicon esculentum leave . Within about 10 days the legless nymph hatch . Nymphs ab initio look like scale insect and are often misguided for them by gardeners . They go through a serial of molts and a pupa point before reaching maturity . An grownup whitefly will experience for about a month . Both houri and grownup whiteflies suck the saphead from the stalk , folio and bud of the love apple works , causing it to wither and ultimately become flat .
Signs of Damage
Plants that have been damaged by whiteflies will show polarity of shrivel and often have yellow leaf . Modern plant development is quite stunted and yield is often malformed or deformed . And because whitefly excrete a honeydew - like nitty-gritty , tomato plants can also suffer from additional maladies including mold and sudden onslaught of viral infection or disease . tomato plant works that show significant signs of illness or disease should be removed straight away to forbid spread to sizable plant .
Preventative Methods and Monitoring
Regularly supervise your love apple plants for whiteflies is one of the best methods for preventing an all - out infestation . Check not only the exterior of the industrial plant , but also the stems and bottom of the leaves for star sign of eggs and nymphs as well as adult whiteflies . And if you prefer to buy tomato seedling or plant from a garden center or baby’s room , be sure to do a thoroughgoing optic CAT scan to mark for indications of whiteflies before buying them and lend them home . It is also important to keep the orbit around your garden or greenhouse tidy and free from undesirable grass since such environments can be inviting to whitefly . Planting marigolds around your tomato plants can also be helpful , as the flowers are believed to repel whitefly as well as many other types of insect pestis .
Natural Control Methods
For underage whitefly job , yellow sticky traps can be very effective . For large scale infestations the introduction of predatory louse such as ladybugs , lacewing fly , predatory mite or Hymenoptera wasps can be invaluable . These good louse may be available to purchase at your local industrial plant glasshouse , though they can also be rank online .
