Pest control on vegetables and cotton with household cooking oils and liquid detergents

Studies were conducted with combinations of common household cooking oils and liquid detergents and a commercial cottonseed oil as potential control agents for several insects and mite pests commonly encountered in the home garden. Also, Natur'l Oil, Stoller Chemical Co., Houston, TX was used for control of sweetpotato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius). Various mixtures of corn, coconut, palm, safflower, sunflower (Western Family), peanut and soybean oils in combination with detergents effectively reduced numbers of sweetpotato whitefly on cotton, watermelon, pepper and cucumber, and green peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer), on cotton and eggplant, cabbage aphid, Brevicoryne brassicae (L.) on cauliflower, and spider mites, Tetranychus spp., on bush beans, peppers and squash.