Re: [gardeners] Soap to kill mites
Margaret Lauterbach (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Thu, 22 Feb 2001 06:40:55 -0700
At 06:17 PM 2/21/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Thank you for your help. I mistakenly though I had mites and they are flies
>
>Did you prune your plant when they're trying
>to cope with an insect invasion? Margaret L
>
> >BTW | awesome, cut back to green wood and they are jammin, (sans the flies
> >as they deplete the leaves)
>
>Translation: Plants are doing awesome, I cut back to green wood because
>many leaves were lost due to tramatic transplantation. Some of the "pepper
>plants" are 4-5 feet tall. Very tramatic to transplant. Lost about 1/2
>their leaves. They are doing well sans (without) the flies. The flies seem
>to be biting the leave and a sap looking substance is ozzing out of the
>leave they are attacking it. Soon the leave dies.
I've overwintered chile plants for several years, and they do defoliate,
even without an insect invasion. Continue to water occasionally, but use
less water lest you rot the roots. They'll refoliate, then they're tender
morsels for aphids (which may disprove the "there ain't such a thing as
spontaneous generation" dictum) and whiteflies. Whiteflies suck sap and
excrete sticky stuff that molds. One or more whiteflies are probably NOT
killing the leaves, the leaves are dropping cotemporaneously with the
insect attack. Control whiteflies with soap spray (Safer's or make your
own), Neem or some mild spray, the label of which says it controls
whiteflies. Margaret L