So whitefly is an issue this time of year as the aphids start to go away, out come the whitefly.
So I got some traps.
They’re sticky traps that smell like new leaves, which is what those bastards go for. The mint seems to be one of the big pulls for the little buggy jerks.
It’s just a matter of peeling the paper off and sticking it close to the plants.
The glory of the new plant stand is that it’s very easy to tie sticky traps too.
The real problem is the chayote. With the whitefly and scale infestations on the mints I’ve just been cutting back the afflicted parts and letting the plants grow back, I can’t do that with my chayote.
And here you can see one of the little bastards.
Those white specks are what the damage looks like.
Anyways the trap is up and hopefully it takes a good chunk out of the whitefly population.
The chayote is very vigorous, to the point where after I put up the trap I had to disentangle it from the apple tree. So I’m not worried too much about it, but it’s better to get ahead of these things.
I have a fair amount of work to do this week, including figuring out what to do with my sun herb bed, which keeps killing oreganos. At least whitefly wont be so much of a problem going forward.
The Neanderthal Gardens 
When I grew citrus (trees) in the early 1990s, whitefly was a serious problem, not because it did any actual damage, but because we could not deliver our stock with whitefly flying about it.
The damage is largely cosmetic except to young plants and plants with edible leaves (who wants to eat a green with whitefly damage?) but yeah, at Sloat we have to triple check all our incoming brugmansia and citrus because of how prevalent whitefly is. Luckily due to the new citrus threat our citrus stock is checked by AG now so they get the task of that.
Oh, that must be difficult or them. I remember selling citrus to Sloat Garden Center. I think I delivered to only three locations, and the material was dispersed to various stores from there. I might have delivered to your store, and then another in Mill Valley (I believe), and perhaps one in Contra Costa County.
Does the whitefly seem to congregate around the lemon tree? It seems odd that it would be such a problem in San Francisco, where the weather is cool and breezy. They would want a spot where they are sheltered from the breeze.
So weirdly the worst whitefly was on my new chayote- my lemon tree is largely unbothered, I suspect since it’s in a shadier spot in the garden and is so damn old.
Age should not deter them. They must prefer the chayote.
(well, obviously)
The sticky trap next to the chayote is just full of dead flys, I’m going to have to buy more. It’s a conundrum all right!