White Flies in Aquaponics

[Dustin Holzberger]

Hi, I am new to the club here and have been doing Aquaponics for about two years now.  It has been very enjoyable and I have learned a lot.  I wanted to throw out a question about white flies.  We had a white fly infestation that was simply terrible.  I ended up removing most of the plants just to take a fresh crack at it.  I started a website to better document my trials and you can see it at www.sideyardaquaponics.com .  I would like to ask for the communities experience with these types of issues and what folks are doing to combat these pest.  With the white flies came millions of ants I suspect eating the honeydew type materials excreted from the flies.  Thank goodness we have a healthy amount of duckweed to assist in the cleansing of the water or we would have been in a larger quandary. 

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Dustin, I'm battling white fly right now, and I have in the past.  In the past I've loaded up with Encarsia Formosa (http://www.biocontrol.entomology.cornell.edu/parasitoids/encarsia.html) and found it to be very effective.  This round I've gone through one batch and have another coming in the mail now.  Good luck!!

[Converse]

Brewed worm casting tea (not just "sun tea" - it needs to be aerated) sprayed all over works for this problem too..  If you have redworms on hand that make castrings for you, you've got the means to control this without buying anything else.

 

Smiles and Sunshine,

Deanne