Greenhouse whitefly

Did you spot the greenhouse whitefly in your crop? Trialeurodes vaporariorum is a common pest causing severe damage in several crops during the entire growing season. In temperate areas, this whitefly species affects both your greenhouse and open-field crops. That’s why biological control offers you the perfect solution.

What damage can the greenhouse whitefly cause?

• Greenhouse whitefly larvae and adults suck plant sap.
• Secretion of honeydew fouls the leaves and fruit.
• Often sooty mould grows on the honeydew, which slows down the photosynthesis of the plant.

How to control the greenhouse whitefly?

To monitor the greenhouse whitefly, you can rely on Biobest’s Bug-Scan.

For biological control of this species, you can introduce:  

• Parasitic wasps such as Encarsia-System;
• Predatory bugs such as Macrolophus-System;
• Predatory mites such as Swirskii-System;
• Biopesticides such as PreFeRal^®.

To boost the population establishment of your beneficials, you can use feed supplements such as:

• Nutrimac^™ in addition to Macrolophus-System;
• Nutrimite^™ in addition to Swirskii-System.

What are the characteristics of the greenhouse whitefly?

• The adults can be found in the top of the plant. Eggs and larvae of the first stage are present on the upper part and older larval stages are further down.
• The 0.2 mm eggs are white, oval-shaped and turn black after 2 to 3 days.
• The first larval stage of 0.3 mm is mobile until they settle on the leaf and the later larval and pupal stages do not move anymore.
• The pupae are 0.7 mm long, white transparent, round with an upright edge and covered with waxy hairs.
• Adults are 1 to 2 mm long with wax-coated and horizontally positioned wings that slightly overlap.
• Adults emerge from the pupae through a T-shaped hole.

What about the greenhouse whitefly’s life cycle?

• Female adults start laying eggs 1 to 2 days after hatching.
• Their fertility depends on the temperature and the host plant e.g. 100 eggs on tomato, 200 eggs on cucumber and 300 eggs on eggplant.
• Greenhouse whiteflies have 6 development stages: egg, 4 larval stages and adult.
• On tomato, the development from egg to adult takes 21 days at 25 °C/77 °F and 51 days at 15 °C/59 °F.
• The development from egg to adult can differ on other host plants e.g 27 days at 25 °C/77 °F in sweet pepper.