Whitefly worries in South Florida

PALM BEACH, Fla. - Take a ride along the ocean in Palm Beach and you're bound to see beautiful homes and well groomed yards. But you'll also see something else.

"Look at the health of this hedge; perfect color, it's fantastic," said landscaper Alan Stopek as he pointed out ficus benjamina plants. "Yet directly across from it you can see the sooty mold. You can see the discoloration, you can see the thinness..."

The plant killer is a microscopic whitefly known as the ficus whitefly.

Pointing out one hedge Stopek said, "This isn't wind damage. This is an insect feeding on the leaves and dehydrating the plant."

Stopek took us on a tour of the once lavish yards he works on.

"We're talking about not only losing foliage, but this is all dead wood. This is a tragedy, absolute tragedy. Look at this," he said pointing to the bare shrub. "I mean it's horrible."

Horribly expensive too. The damage cost homeowners thousands of dollars.

University of Florida entomologist Dr. Catherine Mannion works out of the tropical research facility in Miami-Dade County.  This is the area where the little insect attacked first in South Florida several years ago.   

"We see less problems with ficus whitefly than we did a couple of years ago. Palm Beach County is on the front edge so they're having a big problem right now," said Mannion.

Experts say insecticides can be sprayed on the plants to kill the ficus whitefly.

But now a new pest is invading, not just ficus, but other types of plants in Palm Beach County, It's called the spiral whitefly.

"The way it feeds is the mouth part is like a needle that sticks into the plant so it removes nutrients from the plant," said Mannion. It gets its name because it leaves behind a white spiral.

"We've learned over the last 10 to 14 days that it's going after plants we never thought it would go after," said Stopek.

In one yard we found it on small plants as well as big coconut palm trees.

"When you start losing trees that are 35 to 40 feet because of this particular pest, you're talking about lots and lots of money," he said.

It's not just expensive landscaping either.

"We know it gets on several of the tropical fruits."

While an insecticide kills the spiral whitefly on landscaping, it can't be used on fruit and vegetable plants.

"The thing about fruit trees or vegetables is you can only apply the insecticides that are allowed for those things that you eat," said Mannion.

She said the spiral whitefly doesn't make leaves fall off like the ficus whitefly, instead it blackens them and ruins them with a sticky substance.

"This particular whitefly is a huge nuisance because it produces other substances that get on your cars. People are having a hard time keeping their pool clean and there have been places in Miami that would get so sticky that your feet would stick to the ground as you walked," she said.

A sticky situation that's just beginning.

"We're in the height of spiraling whitefly and it will get worse before it gets better," she said.