Much Ado About Whiteflies

Seems quite a few of my readers want more information on how to control the whiteflies. Many  of you have written to me and have told me how they agree with me on the water issue but how do you deal with the fog? All that water in the air is whiteflies best weather followed by glorious sun and not too hot.

For starters if you really have everything on a drip and have reduced or eliminated any  over head watering then your whiteflies will not be a problem in keeping under control. Then you can farther reduce their population by using any type of natural oil that when mixed with water and a dash of natural soap , can be sprayed and the oil would kill the eggs which usually over winter but lately with warmer winters, the whiteflies have been growing in population all year long.

So what you do is this, in December you give a pruning to the plants in question that have the whiteflies and then spray it both sides of the leaves with a oil/soap mixture. Use 1 oz sesamin oil or coconut oil into 1 gallon water, add a tablespoon of any natural soap (I use Dr Bronners soap), shake and spray the leaves both sides. Best to spray as late as possible or even at night.

You will want to spray once a month so spray in December, Spray again in January  and then again in February, March if its a cold winter.

Also during fog.

Make sure that you are feeding your plants with a rock dust mixture 4 times per year to start then once a year afterwards. 

A good Rock Dust Mixture is as follows: 

1 Part Azomite

1 Part Soft Rock Phosphate

1 Part Agriwin Rock Dust

1 Part Glacial Rock Dust

 I would buy Microbes from wherever you can find a good one, I use the internet to order things I have found to be good.  I use Superseaweed, Nitron, Agri-Gro, Arbico, Agri-win, Peaceful Valley Farm Supplies, Down to Earth,  to name a few sources of microbes and minerals.

You want to blend as many sources of rock dust from around the world and then use a small amount of it around the plants mixed into the soil. The use of tree vents provides a place for the microbes to make it their center and branch out from there into the tree and plant roots providing them with the needed minerals. You can see for yourself what Brix level a plant has when it is being attacked by the whiteflies and then after treating it, try the Brix reading again and you will see the difference. Chemical fertilizers alone do not have all the neccessary trace minerals and therefore the application of rock dust along with the microbes provide for a stronger healthier pest resistant plant.

Chemical fertilizers are usually of the high nitrogen type and cause rapid growth looking very green but they are very week and will be attacked by any pest that loves low carbohydrates (wait thats all of them) and yes rapid growth from high nitrogen will always produce plants will lower Brix levels and high pest problems because they will also have low level of carbohydrates. 

Here is the formula again

High Brix = High Sugar = High Mineral = High Carbohydrates

The wider the range of minerals the better. So having High Brix you may still be deficient in a certain mineral.

Enjoy

 Andy Lopez

Invisible Gardener

Any questions? Email me andy@invisiblegardener.com