Whiteflies: another one ioins the queue

摘要

Until the mid-1980s, growers only had to contend with one species. Whiteflies have been a greenhouse pest ever since crops have been grown under glass. Until the mid-1980s, whiteflies in greenhouses consisted of one species only, commonly known as thegreenhouse whitefly, and a pest on a wide range of ornamental and vegetable crops. At about that time (1986), another whitefly emerged in the U.S. as a serious greenhouse pest. Sweetpotato whitefly (also called silverleaf whitefly) had been known as anoccasional pest of field crops, but it developed a sudden taste for poinsettias, and over the next 20 years became the predominant whitefly pest on this crop. The proper name for this whitefly is Bemisia tabaci and this new strain with a liking for poinsettias became known as Biotype B. (Actually, there are some scientists who consider this strain to be a new species, and the name Bemisia argentifolii is also used to describe it - but that is another story.)