ABSTRACT
The whitefly infests cotton in several areas of the U.S. cotton belt and could become a serious threat to cotton unless proper controls are initiated. Certain foreign countries, notably Sudan, have difficulty selling their cotton on the world market because of this problem. The whitefly, a leaf sucking insect consumes large quantities of plant juices in search of the protein it requires and in turn secretes a sticky "honeydew" composed chiefly of sugars and other carbohydrates. This residue contaminates cotton lint to the extent that processing quality is adversely affected because of stickiness and lapping of stock on card crush rolls and buildup or residues on drawing and roving frame rolls. Presence of significant quantities of sucrose and turanose in residues collected from the card confirm the contamination from whitefly honeydew.
|