ABSTRACT
Bemisia tabaci is highly polyphagous and has been recorded on a very wide range of cultivated and wild plants. However, the magnitude of infestation and the nature and extent of injury vary with plant species, seasons and localities. The host range of the whitefly often has regional characteristics and the same plant species subjected to severe infestations in one area, may be relatively free from the whitefly in another. For example, B. tabaci is a serious threat to the cotton crop in the Sudan but hardly a problem for the same crop in Egypt. While many families are represented by a single species that serves as host of B. tabaci, there are as many as 99 species in Leguminosae at the other extreme. It may be pointed out that 50% of the total number of host plants belong to only five families, namely, Leguminosae, Compositae, Malvaceae, Solanaceae and Euphorbiaceae.
