how to get rid of whiteflies on grapevine and bouganvilla in az

Question

how to get rid of whiteflies

Answer 1

If you were looking for an insecticide I would recommend Orthos Organic insecticide which is natural oils and completely safe around kids and pets. Usually found at Walmart for $5 for 24-36oz

Answer 2

Simply make a weak dish soap solution ( 1 Tbsp/quart) and spray it on the UNDERSIDE of the leaves - where the whiteflies are.  Give this a day or so & then rinse it off with water (you could also just leave it, as it doesn't hurt anything).
You can also buy 'insecticidal soap' for the same purpose...

These critters have tiny probiscises (like a mosquito) and suck the juices from the plant.  You will also see tiny white spots on the underside of the leaves which are their eggs, so they ensure future generations will continue to sponge off you & your plants . . .

You will unfortunately have to keep doing this every so often, as these flies (actually little moths) will keep coming back if you keep your plants outside.

Another solution is to get whitefly screen - which has about 3 times smaller openings than regular window screen - and enclose the plant areas...

Answer 3

Try this:

Put up sticky fly-papers above each infected plant. When the whitefly rise in a cloud they get stuck to the paper.

Use yellow coloured paper & the whitefly will actually fly to it as they are attracted to the yellow colour!

It doesn't get simpler or healthier than that!

G.

Answer 4

Hopefully your can take care of the whitefly thru organic means , but just in case the matter gets out of control and have no choice.  I have worked with Malathion oil sprayed on 7 to 10 day cycle continuously sprayed just within 30 minutes to dark to avoid killing bees etc then the day after the spray I do not water the plants to make sure the leaves hold on to the insecticide.  

On the organic side I have tried a mix of vegetable or corn  oil, with pressed garlic juice mix expresso coffee over the leaves of citrus trees and worked for a while, but i really had to be doing that like every 3 days. The citrus trees had either white flies or aphids and some sort of black stain covering all the leaves.  In my case the valencia orange tree slowly made a come back, but I have to be constantly spraying since the little white flies come back every week.  That is why I had to go into something with longer acting insecticide.