How Do You Spot Sweet Potato Whiteflies?
Whitefly is the name given to different varieties of flying insects that feed on various crops. The sweet potato whitefly feeds mainly on sweet potato plants, destroying their leaves until the plant can’t provide sufficient nourishment to the growing root stock. Spot sweet potato whiteflies during different stages of their development. Turn over the leaves of a sweet potato plant to see if there are small opaque eggs that adhere to the bottom. A typical female whitefly will lay 200 to 300 eggs on the underside of a few leaves and they will be in a single layer. Check your plants frequently because whiteflies quickly reproduce. Identify the first stage of a developing whitefly, called a “nymph.” Look for small, crawling, oval-shaped larvae with tiny legs and antennae. If you see them in this state, they have just hatched. Within a few hours, they will lose their legs and adhere firmly to a leaf and form a pupae. Observe the adult whitefly as it emerges from a small slit in the pupae. n
