Pests part 2: Caplice and whiteflies
Table of contents
The Dopluis
Spread by: pets, wind, clothing, birds and insects
You can recognize this annoying visitor by a hard shield. This shield often has a brown color, but they can also be slightly yellowish. A young aphid is flatter and lighter in color. As soon as the aphid is older and has multiplied, the female carries the eggs under her shell until they hatch. The hatched eggs are also called crawlers. These crawlers are more active than the adult aphids and crawl all over the plant. The adult aphids mainly sit still and are usually located on the veins of the leaf or on the stem of the plant.
The scale insect is also often confused with the scale insect because they are very similar. Nevertheless, there are clear differences. A scale insect is not attached to its shell, but a scale insect is. Scales are also slightly smaller (namely 1 to 3 mm in size) than scales (about 4 mm in size).
Damage
Like many other unwanted plant sitters, the aphid sucks nutrients from the plant. This causes growth inhibitions, discoloration and eventual leaf loss. It also produces honeydew. But what exactly is that? The answer to that is; Honeydew is a sticky substance that can form fungi on the leaves. This is caused by the aphids absorbing too many sugars from the plant. The fungus that appears on the leaves is known as sooty mold / sooty mold and spreads quickly. In small amounts this will not harm the plant, but large amounts will hinder photosynthesis. Ultimately, this will weaken the plant and stop growing.
Get rid of it!
Okay, now that you know how to recognize the scale and what it does, it's time to put an end to this misery. Here are a few tips:
– If you haven't already done so, put your plant in quarantine to prevent spreading.
– Dishwashing liquid do not appreciate scales, in fact, they die from this. So put a lot of water in your plant sprayer and mix it with a dash of dishwashing liquid and a tablespoon of kitchen oil. Spray the aphids with this, but also the rest of the plant for prevention. Repeat every few days until they are gone.
– Do you have a small plant with aphids? Then you can try to keep the part of the plant (or the whole plant) with aphids under water for about 15-12 minutes. As a result, they drown and the plague is gone in 1 go.
– Alcohol is another substance that the scale does not appreciate. Soak a cloth or cotton ball with alcohol and rub all the caps with it. After about 10 to 20 seconds you can remove them from the leaf. Make sure you don't use sweet alcohol, because this causes mold.
You can of course look online for more tips. There are many chemical agents to be found in addition to the home, garden, and kitchen methods. In our shop you can find Pokon Bio Against Stubborn Insects Polysect Spray. This not only works well against scale insects, but also against aphids, mealybugs, scale insects and spider mites!
The whitefly
Spread by: flying
What the whitefly looks like is pretty self-explanatory. In addition to being small, white and triangular, they are about 1 to 3 mm in size. Once they've moved into your home, you'll soon notice them as white dots on your plant's leaves. If your plant has young leaves, they are most likely on them. As soon as you shake the plant back and forth, they will rise as a white cloud, so easy to spot!
You will not think it so quickly, but the whiteflies are closely related to aphids and mealybugs. What is also useful to know is that they are active during the day and are often found in groups. There is also good news, the chance that you will encounter them in your home is not very great, since most species of whitefly can only be found on fruit and vegetable crops. The houseplants most susceptible to the whitefly are those with soft leaves.
Damage
The whitefly is on your green friend because she needs nutrients. The whitefly sucks these nutrients out of your plant. This will give your plant yellow leaves, which will fall off after a while due to the lack of nutrition.
In addition, the whitefly with its poisonous saliva can affect the plant by spreading viruses. But that's not all, she also leaves honeydew behind on the plant. The effect of this is that your plant will weaken and eventually stop growing.
Get rid of it!
Fighting these white bugs can be quite tricky, but we have some tips for you to get rid of them as quickly as possible:
– Use a powerful plant sprayer, garden hose or shower head and spray the white flies off your plant with cold water.
– The whitefly also has a number of natural enemies. Parasitic wasps, spiders, dragonflies and ladybugs will take the whiteflies away for you with love. So do you have a house spider that you can temporarily move to your plant? Then that might be the solution.
– The predatory bug 'Macrolophus pygmaeus' is also a natural enemy of the whitefly. You can order these online. These eat all the whiteflies they can find and love the eggs and larvae the most. If you also suffer from spider mites, thrips, aphids or moths, this predatory bug will also come in handy, because it will eat them for you too. In addition to the predatory bug, you can also buy parasitic wasp pupae and ladybugs online, so plenty of choice in terms of natural enemies!
– Yellow stickers and yellow sticky traps can catch some of the flies. But remember that this is just symptom relief. They will not disappear completely because of a yellow sticker!
There are of course many more methods, tips, home, garden and kitchen remedies online to combat the whitefly, especially search for this if you want to know more about it.
Prevention is better than cure
Of course you can't always prevent an unwanted visitor, but you can certainly avoid a plague. Check your plants regularly for unwanted visitors. A useful moment can be, for example, during watering. Then look on and under the sheet. A good tool for this is a magnifying glass or a flashlight so that you can spot the critters better. The eggs of the whitefly are on the underside of a (often young) leaf. When you see these, it is best to remove the leaf completely.
