Glasshouse Whitefly

• GeneralIt is controlled by releasing parasitoid wasps rather than with insecticides.
• Despite its name it is not a fly: it is a hemipteran, a relative of the aphids and scale insects, with the sucking mouthparts characteristic of the group.
• Its juvenile stages are immobile, flattened and translucent, stuck to the underside of the leaf, and are mistaken for scale insects or dirt.
• It was the first success of biological control under glass: the wasp Encarsia formosa has been used against it in British glasshouses since before 1930.
• The main damage is not the sap it takes but the honeydew it excretes, on which a sooty mould grows that coats the leaf and reduces photosynthesis.
• It transmits plant viruses, among them beet pseudo-yellows virus, described in California in 1965.
• The release technique consists of hanging cards on the plant bearing already parasitised whitefly pupae, from which the wasps emerge.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - chitin exoskeleton (insect)

Habitat and environment

Glasshouses and vegetable crops

Sexual maturity

The females can mate less than 24 hours after emerging and begin to lay after three days

Gestation / incubation

The eggs hatch in about 8-10 days; the full cycle closes in 21-36 days at 21-27 °C and lengthens to 30-45 in cold conditions

Litter / clutch size

150 to 400 eggs per female, laid in a circle on the underside of the leaves; one study at 25 °C recorded 305 eggs per female

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Trialeurodes vaporariorum · Estudio coreano de desarrollo a temperatura controlada (via AGRIS/FAO) · ScienceDirect (Hughes 1989) · Science Advances, How colonial animals evolve · Wikipedia, Zooid · ScienceDirect · Ficha de especie de Trialeurodes vaporariorum (CABI 2021) · Ficha de especie de Trialeurodes vaporariorum · guias de manejo en invernadero · UNH Extension, ficha Greenhouse whitefly

Best time: In a glasshouse all the stages overlap all year round; outdoors it does not survive harsh winters