Tiny, tiny white flying insects

17 years ago

Yesterday there were tons of tiny white flecklike insects on the underside of my newly leafed brugmansias. When I sprayed them they flew off in droves. They can barely be seen but you can tell something is flying and when on the leaf, they look like tiny aphids but to my knowledge aphids don't fly.

Any idea what they might be? Today there are fewer of them but I'm not rid of them yet.

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Comments (10)

jean001
17 years ago
Perhaps whiteflies?
tngreenthumb
17 years ago
Very likely whiteflies. A nice strong misty spray a couple times a day will usually wipe them out in a few days.
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rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
17 years ago
I'm hesitating on this one as I've never heard anyone describe whitefly as 'looking like tiny aphids'. BUT, perhaps you have whitefly AND aphids. And yes, at certain points of the season, winged aphids are born. Unless you have a wooly aphid of some kind, though, their wings are transluscent. They might be described as gnat-like in appearance.
jean001
17 years ago
Well, rhizo, I based my guess on the details of "tiny white flecklike insects " and "When I sprayed them they flew off in droves."

Beyond that, a good photo would sure help. :>)
rhizo_1 (North AL) zone 7
17 years ago
AND the fact that whitefly loooooove these plants!
xa1mechyx1
15 years ago
I have the same problem... I looked at them under a magnifying glass and there bodies are slendor and the wings sit directly on top of there bodies, also the antennes are wing like which make them different from a white fly. They are tan in color and fly by the 10,000's Also they love the sun.If anyone can help please email me at dongate1@msn.com they are really becoming a pest.
bug_hater_14432
14 years ago
I have a small vegetable garden outside of my house and these things are driving me CRAZY!! I've gone through 4 bottles of "vegetable safe" spray and NOTHING has helped whatsoever. To me they look like tiny white moths and when I move a plant or start to spray you just see a cloud of these tiny white things flying all over the place. I'd appreciate any advice!
sandra_hunting_yahoo_com
12 years ago
I have thousands of tiny, white flying insects on my grapevines and the vines are dying...i have started to cut them down...the vines are very old...about 20 years...i don't know if that means anything, but they are VERY ANNOYING!
Kimmsr
12 years ago
Whiteflies are one of the many insect pests that have developed immunities to many of the synthetic pesticides out there so an understanding of their life cycle helps with control.
Yellow sticky traps can be used, even though they are most often used to determine the presence of some pests every one caught on that trap is one less adult to mate or lay eggs.
The link below provides access to a good article, free to cownload as a .pdf file which requires Adobe Reader or to read as an HTML but costs to print out.

Here is a link that might be useful: Whitefly control
Aliebay
11 years ago
I have millions of these things on my grapevines every summer. They start getting bad when the weather warms up and stay until it gets cold. The long the hot weather continues the more there are until you can't even walk under the arbor without them swarming around you. Up close they don't seem to have the same wings that the white flies do. Also notice the brown dots they leave on the leaves. Any ideas?