Fruit Flies and Other Pests

Chilli Pests & Animal Attacks

Common Pests on Chilli Plants:

Broad mite

Aphid

Fruit Fly

Whiteflies

Caterpillar

Snails

Possums

You have germinated your new chillies, they are growing and it’s just be a matter of months before you can harvest your chillies. Sometimes something happens – animals eating your chillies or your chilli plants are attacks by pests.

Broad Mites:

If your plant has broad mites the new growth is looking curled and deformed. Bummer, you have broad mites.

Broad mites lay eggs on the underside of leaves and dwell there and in crevices around the plant. They prefer feeding on newer leaves, and their toxic saliva causes malformation and stunts the growth of young plants.

They are so small you can’t see them with the naked eye.

Who to get rid of Broad mites:

Give them a good spray with Lime Sulphur or Mancozeb Plus.

Mancozeb Plus contains Sulphur and Sulphur kills Broad mites. This spray won’t hurt the plant, so give them a good spray, don’t hold back and make sure you get underneath the leaves.

Follow the instructions on the bottle on how much and often to spray.

Aphids: 

Aphids are 2-4 mm long insects and you’ll find them underneath the leaves.

Who to get rid of Aphids:

Ladybirds and parasitic Wasps are in love the aphids and are natural predators.

You can use Pyrethrum to get rid of aphids naturally.

We have too many plants, so we use Confidor. Confidor is a systemic and will get rid of Aphids.

Whiteflies:

Whiteflies can appear out of nowhere all of a sudden. They are easy to identify. If you move or water your chilli plants and you see what looks like an instant snowstorm with minute things flitting all over, you’ve got whiteflies! You have to to take action as they multiply like crazy.

How to get rid of Whiteflies:

White fly are best controlled using alternating sprays such as Confidor. Spraying is best done in the early morning or late afternoon when the insects are more restful.

You can use White Oil as well.

Fruit Fly

Fruit flies threaten your crops. You will notice a little brown dot on your pods, suddenly the pods drop to the ground and are squeezy. If you open the pod you’ll send little maggots crawling inside. They are difficult to get rid of.

How to get rid of Fruit flies:

You can buy traps and you will need to pick up all infected pods and throw them out.

If the traps doesn’t work, you can spray with Malathon. That will fix the problem. If you want to go natural use a product called Spinosad.

You can also make up a trap with Vegemite and water, that will attract the male fruit flies.

Caterpillar and Grasshoppers

You can use a product called “Natures Way” it contains Dipel . It is natural and effective to control of caterpillars, millipedes and grasshoppers, easy to use.

Snail and slugs

we use snail and slugs pellets. That controls snails and slugs and are easy to apply.

Hortico Snail & Slug Pellets are an economical and effective snail and slug killer.

Possum and rat attacks

Possums and rats love eating chillies up to habanero heat. We make chilli water and spray our plants. Take a lot of dried super hot chillies and boil them in water. Let the water cool and spray your chillies.

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