A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2005 White Fly on small lemon tree

Hi everyone. I have a question on what the best way to get rid of white fly is? My neighbor has a young lemon tree and asked me to help her cut the limbs with the white fly off, but I noticed while taking a look at the tree that it's pretty much infested. Is there something that she can treat the plant with. The tree is too young to bear fruit yet. I'm just hoping she can save it without having it infest other plants.

Is there a spray? Something natural that she and I can mix up and spray on it? If it HAS to be a chemical, I think she'd do it, because at this point she's desperate...but an organic mix would make her a lot happier.

thanks in advance everyone!
kristi

PHYSICAL AND CULTURAL CONTROLS:
If you had clouds of whiteflies on your tomatoes or beans in the previous year, then acting early in the spring is your best bet to control this pest! Useful strategies include:

Vacuuming in the early morning when whiteflies are cold and slow moving can remove many of the adults before they have a chance to lay many eggs. After vacuuming, empty the vacuum bag into a plastic bag and put in the freezer for 24 hours.
Hang sticky yellow traps above the plants, at the beginning of the season to detect an invasion early. Tapping the plants with a stick will cause the whitefly to fly up and onto the traps. Whiteflies are strongly attracted to the colour yellow, so you really shouldn't wear yellow clothing around whiteflies or you may carry them from plant to plant.
Physical barriers such as floating row covers or mosquito netting work very well for early-season protection.
Handpick older leaves to remove young whitefly stages.
Avoid using a lot of nitrogen fertilizer, including manures, as succulent growth will increase whitefly populations. You may need to check your phosphorus and magnesium levels, as deficiencies in these are believed to contribute to whitefly infestations.
Try a high pressure hosing in the early morning, 3 days in a row.

LEAST TOXIC CHEMICAL CONTROLS:
Whiteflies began showing resistance to synthetic insecticides many years ago, and have since become a major problem in some crops and greenhouses. To control an infestation use a suitable organic spray as soon as adults are noticed, make sure you spray underneath the leaves:

Insecticidal soap sprays such as Natrasoap are a good choice of control for the home gardener; spray every 2-3 days for 2 weeks.
Spray Pest Oil or try making your own oil spray by mixing 1 tablespoon dishwashing liquid detergent with 1 cup of cooking oil; add 1 to 2.5 teaspoons of this solution to 1 cup of water, spray onto plants every 10 days.
Botanical insecticides such as garlic are useful. Research undertaken in NZ on neem’s effectiveness for whitefly found that it had a major impact by preventing the ‘nymph’ stage from developing into an adult; the nymphs tend to disappear from the treated plants.

http://www.greenharvest.com.au/pestcontrol2/whitefly_info.html

I've had problems with whiteflies on mine.i'm trying neemtree oil this year.I sprayed 1st when new leaves were half grown and am doing every 7 days.its my friday thing.i've used water spraying in past and my safers insectsidal soap I use on roses and stuff.i aquired a full grown tree when bought property,I've just never seen it grow,but can say they grow fast.it was maybe 6 ft 2 years ago and bet is 15-17 feet now.i believe my main trunck got broke and are just tons of suckers.from what have learned from neighbors its possibly 11 years old& has huge softball size ponderosa size lemons.they say 1 lemon will make a pitcher of lemonaide.I also have a lime tree,kumquat& loquat.