Cash Crops
Whitefly Insects
Whitefly is an insect of Hemiptera class and Aleyrodidae family that attacks almost all vegetable crops in Bangladesh including many fruit trees. They are yellowish white in appearance, small in size and colonize under the leaves. This whitefly is the cause of many complex diseases of crops.
Types and symptoms of damage
- Whiteflies suck sap from the phloem tissue of leaves with their pointed beaks. As a result, the leaves gradually turn yellow.
- They excrete a liquid faeces rich in sugar known as “honeydew”. This honeydew causes leaf pod mold to attack. As a result, the leaves turn black. Honeydew also attracts ants, resulting in many ants on infested plants.
- Whiteflies spread various virus diseases in crops. Due to them, virus attack is seen in other crops including pepper, tomato, brinjal, cucumber, potato, watermelon, sweet pumpkin. A well-known crop disease in Bangladesh is leaf curl, which is caused by a virus. This virus
- is mainly spread by white flies.
Management
The whitefly has to be controlled at the beginning otherwise various diseases of the crop will spread and then it becomes difficult to control. The following measures should be taken to control white flies.
- To destroy parts of the previous crop as they may contain insect eggs.
- Inspection of affected crop fields should be carried out in healthy fields.
- Good results are obtained using Yolo sticky traps.
- Crops should be inspected regularly.
In case of insect attack, "Abbastar 3 WDG" (0.5 gm per liter of water) should be sprayed.
