Whitefly on cucumbers in a greenhouse: how to get rid of and how to handle?

It is almost impossible to find a summer cottage where cucumbers are not grown, but various insects can spoil the harvest. The whitefly on cucumbers is an insect that causes significant damage to cucumber beds. The success of pest control directly depends on how early the gardener noticed him in his area and how much damage the whitefly has already managed to inflict on cucumbers.

Signs of an insect on cucumbers

The insect got its name due to the color of its wings - they are white-milky in adults of the whitefly. The insect is small in size, the length of the body reaches up to 3 mm. Outwardly, it resembles a small light moth.

Insect can appear not only in an open area, but also on cucumbers in a greenhouse. The whitefly breeds quickly, so the timely destruction of the insect is necessary. She prefers a warm and humid climate, so she most often appears when growing crops at home or in greenhouses.

The first signs of a pest are:

• The appearance of white spots on the leaves.
• The surface of the leaves has become sticky to the touch.
• The appearance of a black coating over time.
• Deformation and falling leaves.
• Declining yields.

The fight against the whitefly is also necessary due to the fact that it is a carrier of many diseases:

• Chlorosis.
• Jaundice.
• Fruit necrosis.
• Curly foliage.
• Yellow mosaic.

Greenhouses, as well as greenhouses - a favorite place for the insect. Most often, it prefers to winter and lay eggs in such conditions.

How to get rid of whiteflies in a greenhouse?

The whitefly in the greenhouse should be disposed of immediately after it appeared on the beds. Breeding this insect, if it has already laid a lot of larvae, will be much more difficult.

Methods of dealing with the parasite in the beds:

• Biological.
• Mechanical.
• Chemical.

The mechanical method of struggle is the most laborious.

How to get rid of a parasite in a greenhouse:

• Use a handheld vacuum cleaner to collect all the insects. It is recommended to do this in the morning or in the evening when it gets cool outside. In cold weather, the whitefly shows the least activity.
• Collecting damaged leaves by hand. This will remove some of the larvae, the rest will be destroyed by natural enemies. This way you can control the number of the parasite on the site.
• Treat each damaged leaf with a solution of laundry soap. Then, using a hose, the leaves must be rinsed.

Such methods of struggle are rarely used, since they are of low efficiency.

Such an insect in a greenhouse as a whitefly can be most effectively eliminated using chemical control methods using various chemicals.

The main disadvantage of this method is that the production of insecticides uses substances that can adversely affect human he alth. Therefore, you need to be more careful with the chemical method of struggle.

Popular preparations to process cucumbers in a greenhouse:

• Actellik.
• Aktara.
• Confidor.
• Kids.
• Verticilin J.
• Fufanon.

The above preparations can be applied under the root or sprayed bushes. The second method is preferable, it is more harmless to humans.

It is advisable to spray the bushes in dry calm weather early in the morning or in the evening, when there will be no scorching sunlight. Before spraying, it is worth checking the weather forecast so that there are no heavy rains in the near future.

To cope with the cucumber parasite, you need to spray the bushes at the initial stage, when there are not so many whiteflies. When they fill the entire area, it will be useless to fight them.

Biological control methods are considered the safest for human he alth.

How to process cucumbers using folk methods?

If you don’t want to use chemicals to process cucumbers, but somehow you need to fight the whitefly, then it’s time to learn about folk recipes against the insect.

It is worth noting that these recipes are effective only when the insect population is still small.

Folk methods of dealing with whitefly in a greenhouse and greenhouse:

• Infusion of dandelions. Dandelions can often be found in a summer cottage, and instead of throwing the plant away, an infusion is prepared from it for whiteflies. Tear off a bag of dandelion leaves and dig out the roots. Pour the plants with 1 liter of water and let it brew for 4 hours. Strain the infusion. Now you can start spraying the foliage.
• Infusion based on garlic. 300 g garlic cloves finely chopped and pour 1 liter of water. Put in a dark room to insist for 5 days. Spray cucumber beds with a spray bottle.
• Sugar solution. Dissolve 100 g of sugar in 2 cups of water. Treat the leaves in the greenhouse with the resulting solution, which have signs of infection. If the solution did not help, repeat the procedure after 7 days. After 5 days, water the cucumbers with a hose to wash off the sugar film.
• Yarrow infusion. 100 g of yarrow herb pour 1 liter of water and put in a dark place where the sun's rays will not penetrate for 2 days. Strain the infusion and treat the cucumber beds with it.

As with chemicals, these infusions should be sprayed on the beds in calm weather in the evening or early in the morning.

Traps for whitefly in greenhouse

If all else fails, you can place a trap on the lot. Do it yourself.

How to make a whitefly trap:

• The plastic bottle needs to be painted orange or red.
• Then it is covered with etymological glue.
• After that, lighting is set next to the bottle so that insects fly at it.
• In a few hours, such a trap will collect more than half of all whiteflies that are on cucumbers.

A few days later, a second trap is set up in the greenhouse as a preventive measure.

Make it like this:

• Knit a small wooden box together and drill a hole in it.
• Paint the bulb red or yellow.
• Place a light bulb inside the box and turn it on for the night.
• Put a plate of water at the bottom of the box.

Insects fly into the light and get burned on the light bulb. And then they fall into the water, from where they can no longer get out and die.

Such traps can be made by any summer resident.

Prevention of the appearance of an insect in the garden

As a preventive measure, the greenhouse should be kept open in the winter. The windows can be opened at night. It is recommended to freeze the greenhouse well so that all insects and larvae in the soil die. The temperature in the greenhouse in winter should exceed -12 degrees. Then the larvae and adults begin to die.

The greenhouse bed needs regular inspection. The sooner the whitefly is found, the easier it is to deal with.

After harvesting, remove all weeds and dig up the soil. It would be useful to pour it with a solution of potassium permanganate. If there were insects in the cucumber garden in the summer, then such bushes should be collected and burned away from the summer cottage.

Whitefly can appear not only on cucumbers, but also on other crops that grow on the site. Therefore, you need to inspect all plants and, if they appear, treat nearby growing plants.

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