Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A few questions:
My Encarsia formosa are doing well controlling the whitefly in my greenhouse. Most of the whitefly eggs are parasitized. I'm noticing more whitefly since the GH is kept closed more often and poly is on.

1. Do I need to leave the parasitzed eggs on the plants, or can I remove them?
2. Can I spray Azaractin on them if they get too bad again? Or will that kill my wasps. The makers say it's friendly to beneficials.
3. Is there a threshold for whitefly that is OK. I can see them in there, but they seem to be being controlled for the time being at least. With the huge problem I had earlier with them, I don't want to let them get too far along again.

Thanks.

I would leave the parasitized eggs alone. They will hatch into pest killers.

Going to leave them alone for now. Also ordered some Delphastus pusillus. They are supposed to be very good at white fly eradication, with each one eating over 1000 pests in it's life. They need a fairly large population of whitefly to breed. This may be the only time I hope I have ENOUGH white fly.lol Will update and see how the new "ladies" do. Hopefully, like the wasps, I;ll be able to keep a stable population going. They say that the azadirachtin is easy on both of these beneficials. That's good, I can always help them along by a early evening spraying if needed. Since they don't feed on plants, they don't usually suffer from a treatment.

Definitely leave the eggs alone. You want a swarm of wasps hunting down all the whitefly.

Thanks guys!