Kitchen Garden Forum

By coincidence I had taken my camera to the plot this morning to take pictures to show you the appalling state of my Brussel Sprouts thanks to whitefly.

Whitefly and Sooty Mould in abundance






This is the state after four sprayings this year to try and get rid.

Whilst others try the milk experiment I am thinking of trying washing up liquid but have no idea what dilution rate to use

Last year I used enviromesh over the brassica's form the moment they were transplanted out from the greenhouse and they were perfectly clear. Still got infested because as I later discovered they found a small hole in it before I did.

My frilly sprouts look just like that Pa, also got them on my kale. They are both only netted, as much as I like to have all brassicas under environmesh it is a bit costly in larger sizes so building up the stock gradually! My frilly sprouts are over 5' 6" tall so quite a big piece needed for them, alone. Gross the soot stuff on the leaves but fortunately not on the sprouts themselves.

I chose to protect my cabbages and cauliflowers with what mesh I had and they aren't sooty at all but do have white fly indeed. Is the soot definitely just from the white fly or is there something else attacking them I wonder?

Westi

Westi

As far as I am aware the sooty mould cause is the whitefly

All,
Have finally managed to recall where I had read about the white fly and raw milk and it was on the NVS website, I had also been to a talk by John Trim where he had mentioned it.
So - it worked!! Checked greenhouse this am and only the odd lonely white fly around. Same for outside brassicas. The secret is sourcing the milk as it has to be unpasteurised and non homogenised, in other words raw!

So it is sprouts back on the menu for us tonight....

Interesting to see if anyone else tries and gets the same results. Apparently it is good on powdery mildews as well.

Hilary

I just happened to tune in to Radio 2 yesterday afternoon whilst in the car, and a 'Gardening Guru', (sorry I have no idea who he was), was recommending using a high pressure jet of water from a pump-up sprayer to dislodge the whitefly, and when they fall to the soil using a watering can to (hopefully) drown them, as he reckoned they don't swim too well.
When I've washed them off brassicas in a bowl of water, the little ***s seem to be quite adept at most swimming strokes, so how successful this is in practice who knows?

FredFromOssett wrote:I just happened to tune in to Radio 2 yesterday afternoon whilst in the car, and a 'Gardening Guru', (sorry I have no idea who he was), was recommending using a high pressure jet of water from a pump-up sprayer to dislodge the whitefly, and when they fall to the soil using a watering can to (hopefully) drown them, as he reckoned they don't swim too well.
When I've washed them off brassicas in a bowl of water, the little ***s seem to be quite adept at most swimming strokes, so how successful this is in practice who knows?

Great in theory, manure in practice..

Pump up bottles don't produce strong enough spray. Little wotsits just put their umbrellas up, and as you suggest .... they have swimming costumes

Some of the costumes they have are great but the ones in mankini's !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe one of their costume suppliers is called Wicked Whitefly.

Pa!

Westi

As posted previously our sprouts are infested, as are some other plots on the site. Annual occurrence for some.

However, the plot neighbouring mine has not had any netting on their brassicas since they were planted.
No sign of attack by caterpillars, nor any white fly. Absolutely clean. To the point of being annoyingly so

I have not seen them to ask recently but I do hearsay that they have used a homemade dilution of rhubarb leaves. At what ratio I have yet to find out.

been thinking about my previous post.
Rhubarb leaves contain poisons which affect humans if leaves are eaten

My concern therefore is how much toxin, if any, is likely to be transferred to the sprouts by incorrect usage of diluted rhubarb leaves

Everything of scientific substance I can find on rhubarb poisoning points to it being an achievement to ingest a fatal or permanently damaging dose.

It reads as a severe discomfort and sickness or diarrhoea effect.

peter wrote:
It reads as a severe discomfort and sickness or diarrhoea effect.

Thanks Peter
Sounds like someone who has eaten too many sprouts anyway

I checked all my plot today anything that is green has white fly all over it, the wife stripped the last remaining rhubarb last week so no chance of using that the chances of getting pure milk around here is nigh on impossible the search goes on

Hi Robo

Even if you did have some rhubarb leaves I suspect that by the time they had fully broken down in a bucket of water tt would be too late to effectively treat this year.

You are probably right pa snip ,the only good thing is lady birds,every plot on our allotment seems to be covered in them apart from ours I think I will put some signs up "free white fly come and eat them while you can " but I don't think they can read

I can be a right ole killjoy at times.

I hear that harlequin ladybirds have set up camps before flying over en masse to the UK, carrying yet another virus that our indigenous specie wont cope with.

Trouble is who wants to start wiping out the carriers. Its a ladybird, we go ooh or ahhh wherever they come from as long as they wipe out the blackfly etc: