Ficus Whitefly Control

Basic Whitefly control Info

Did you know that there are more than 75 different whitefly species found in Florida affecting hundreds of plants.

1 whitefly can multiply into over a 1.6 billion in about 90 days. See the example bellow

Why spray programs fail to control shrub pests and whiteflies

Most pest control spray companies fail in trying to control whiteflies with monthly, bi-monthly and quarterly spray programs. This is because they fail to understand shrub pests and whitefly biology.

Whiteflies are more proliferate and have different life cycles than most other common pests.

The whitefly doesn’t care about your program!

Whitefly proliferation explained

• Whiteflies lay their eggs on the undersides of the leaves.
• A single whitefly can lay between 160 up to 400 eggs in her lifetime
• The lifespan of an adult whitefly is between of 6 to 60 days.
• The eggs can hatch in about 4 days to 2 weeks.
• The hatchlings are called nymphs and are six legged called crawlers.
• Most pesticides can’t kill the eggs or while in the molt casings.

Do the math

Depending on how many of the host plants you have you can have a massive infestation in just 30 to 60 days which is the normal time between sprays.

1 whitefly x 200 eggs in 12 days = 200 whiteflies
30 days 200 whiteflies x 200 eggs in 12 days = 40,000 whiteflies
30 days 40,000 x 200 eggs = 8 million whiteflies in just 2 to 3 month
60 days 8 million X 200 = 1.6 billion

By the time you call and have it sprayed your ficus are infested with
8 million whiteflies and 1 billion 600 million eggs waiting to hatch.

Most spray programs are worthless

Whitefly additional information

Theses new crawlers move around for several hours looking for a place on the leaf to insert their mouth parts into the leaves and stay there sucking all the nutrients out of the leaf.

Whiteflies go through a growth stage called molting, after three molts they pupate and then become adults.

The pupae case remains on the plant tissue even after the adult has emerged during the time they are in the molt cases the pesticides cannot penetrate the casing and cannot kill the whitefly nymphs.

Under normal circumstance it takes for the whiteflies to develop into adults about 4 weeks in the summer and up to 6 months in the winter to develop from eggs to adults, you see why most spray programs won’t work to control whiteflies because you would have to spray every week for life in order to kill them, this is not only not impractical, but very expensive and environmentally irresponsible.

Whiteflies, scales, mealybugs, and aphids all excrete a sugary substance called honeydew, which will lead to an unsightly black fungus called sooty mold. Besides it being unattractive the sooty mold may interfere with the plants photosynthesis reducing plant growth and cause early leaf drop and dieback to some plants.. Sooty mold usually weathers away after an insect infestation is controlled.

Ants love feed on the honeydew so ants are attracted to your property and would explain why you are having a difficult time with ants.

In addition to typical spray programs being ineffective they also have short lifespan known as residual which break down with light or photo degrade. Foliar spray pesticides wash off and trying to find a day in the summer that doesn’t rain is almost as impossible as trying to time the molt cycle of the whitefly, another reason spray programs don’t work for whitefly control.