WhiteFlies on Guava Trees

[FMfruitforest]

Looking for recommendations on how to eradicate the whiteflies off my guava trees.

[Cythompson159@yahoo.com]

After battling and loosing for the last 9 months I finically got rid of the for the time being. I tried captain jacks and all other type of remedies,like washing them and bought 1500 lady bugs and u leashed it on the tree. I inspect all of my trees at least 4 days a week looking at bottom of leaves and picking off any critters or eggs I see. I foliar feed and have very healthy trees as was this one. Having almost 20 fruit trees now it was the only plant that would have any issue with pests. I finally gave up at the end of summer. The leaves and bark started to get covered with black soot as well. Yesterday I pruned the tree only leaving scaffold branches and a few new leaves that were still good. The black bark is shedding and back to mainly cooper, I bagged the branches and they will be picked up tomorrow.  Now is a great time to do that, likely no more cold weather and spring has not hit the tree. I do t see any other way. It’s a loosing fight. You will still get a good crop by doing this.

[shpaz]

After battling and loosing for the last 9 months I finically got rid of the for the time being. I tried captain jacks and all other type of remedies,like washing them and bought 1500 lady bugs and u leashed it on the tree. I inspect all of my trees at least 4 days a week looking at bottom of leaves and picking off any critters or eggs I see. I foliar feed and have very healthy trees as was this one. Having almost 20 fruit trees now it was the only plant that would have any issue with pests. I finally gave up at the end of summer. The leaves and bark started to get covered with black soot as well. Yesterday I pruned the tree only leaving scaffold branches and a few new leaves that were still good. The black bark is shedding and back to mainly cooper, I bagged the branches and they will be picked up tomorrow.  Now is a great time to do that, likely no more cold weather and spring has not hit the tree. I do t see any other way. It’s a loosing fight. You will still get a good crop by doing this.

Buying lady bugs is often useless as they tend to just fly away. I have heard better things regarding the Green lacewing as you can buy them as larva where they cant just fly away.

Also, have you tried insecticidal soap?

[FMfruitforest]

I sprayed them off with water but I know they will return, would spraying with neem oil prevent there return?

[FMfruitforest]

I did hard prune them in fall which helped reduce the size of affected area

[Capt Ram]

What about bagging the fruit-- would this work??

[Cythompson159@yahoo.com]

They didn’t attack my fruit, fruit flys will do that but didn’t have any issue there.

[shpaz]

I sprayed them off with water but I know they will return, would spraying with neem oil prevent there return?

I have read somewhere that Neem will deter them from laying their eggs. I cant say if true or not

[Capt Ram]

I just recently planted some guava so I guess I'm going to have to find out through my own experience what to do hopefully I don't get a bunch of whiteflies I don't seem to have any here at the moment,

[pineislander]

I've recently been seeing a suite of sucking stuff on guava, whitefly, aphid, and scale being farmed by ants. Early detection and pruning off the worst affected branches seems to help. One I had to hard prune way back, another just a few branches.
Not sure is the ants are bringing them in or just protecting them but if there is a low population the ants seem to lose interest and predators do their jobs.

[pineislander]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iic-aHGhUb4