- Author: Ben Faber
SACRAMENTO — An additional portion of Fresno County along its southern border with Tulare County has been placed under quarantine for the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) following the detections of ACP in two locations in an unincorporated area of northern Tulare County near the City of Orange Cove. The quarantine expansion adds approximately 50 square miles to the existing quarantine for a total of 84 square miles in Fresno County. All of Tulare County remains under quarantine as a result of previous ACP detections.
The new quarantine area in Fresno County is bordered on the north by E Kings Canyon Road; on the south by the Fresno County Boundary Line; on the west by S Alta Avenue; and on the east by an unnamed creek. The quarantine map is available online at www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/go/acp-qmaps.
The quarantine prohibits the movement of citrus and curry tree nursery stock out of the quarantine area and requires that all citrus fruit be free from ACP prior to moving out of the quarantine area. An exception may be made for nursery stock and budwood grown in USDA-approved structures which are designed to keep ACP and other insects out. Residents with backyard citrus trees in the quarantine area are asked not to transport citrus fruit or leaves, potted citrus trees, or curry leaves from the quarantine area.
ACP county-wide quarantines are now in place in Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties, with portions of Fresno, Kern, Madera, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Clara counties also under quarantine.
The ACP is an invasive species of grave concern because it can carry the disease huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening. All citrus and closely related species, such as curry trees, are susceptible hosts for both the insect and disease. There is no cure once a tree becomes infected; the diseased tree will decline in health and produce bitter, misshaped fruit until it dies. HLB has been detected just once in California – in 2012 on a single residential property in Hacienda Heights, Los Angeles County. This plant disease does not affect human health.
Residents in the area who think they may have seen ACP or symptoms of HLB on their citrus trees are urged to call CDFA's Invasive Species Hotline at 1-800-491-18991-800-491-1899 FREE. For more information on the ACP and HLB, please visit: www.cdfa.ca.gov/go/acp.
—California Department of Food and Agriculture
- Author: Ben Faber
Mark Hoddle of UC Riverside Entomology Department has intorduced a second species of natural enemy of Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP), Diaphoencyrtus aligarhensis, imported from Punjab, Pakistan. It was officially released December 16, 2014 at the Biological Control Grove at UCR. It is anticipated that this natural enemy will be complimentary to Tamarixia radiata, a parasatoid that also attacks ACP nymphs that was released in California in 2011. It's thought that it might occupy slightly different environments where it might be more successful than Tamarixia.
- Author: Jeannette Warnert
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources scientists based at UC Riverside are honing in on odors that might lure Asian citrus psyllids into traps, and other odors that will keep them away from citrus trees, reported Mark Muckenfuss in the Riverside Press-Enterprise.
Anandasankar Ray, professor in the Department of Entomology at UCR, along with two other researchers, published results recently that Ray believes are promising enough they may soon be adapted for grower use.
Ray and his team tested three attractant odors in El Monte backyards using yellow sticky traps. More than twice the number of psyllids were found in the scented traps compared to unscented traps, the article said. In time the researchers will also test chemicals that can mask odors that are pleasant to Asian citrus psyllids and some that repel the insects.
Other research projects underway at UC Riverside to combat Asian citrus psyllid and the disease it can spread were also noted in the Press-Enterprise article. They are: biological controls, including a tiny wasp imported from Pakistan that feeds on the psyllids; insecticides; developing resistant strains of citrus trees; finding a way to kill the bacteria spread by psyllids once it is in the tree; and discovering ways to identify diseased trees earlier.
- Author: Craig Kallsen
It shouldn’t be news to local citrus growers and industry people that the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) is being found with increasing frequency in the southern San Joaquin Valley. If this is news to you please follow the website at http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/acp/ and/or sign up for U.C. entomologist Dr. Beth Grafton-Cardwell’s blog at;
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/ucanrorgblogscitruspest/.
Go to Beth’s website and in the upper right corner you can subscribe and receive the blog each time she sends one out. She also has a twitter account ‘ucanrbethgc’ that you can follow. This blog covers more than just ACP and is a great source of information on citrus IPM and citrus entomology. At the CDFA website, or through links to the site at Dr. Grafton-Cardwell’s blog, you can find maps delineating quarantine areas around new ACP finds, such as the one surrounding the recent find in the Wasco area (see attached map as an example). Regulations related to what needs to be done related to harvesting fruit and selling nursery trees growing within the quarantine zone can be found at:
http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/pe/interiorexclusion/acp_quarantine_sjv.html
So far, there is no sign of HLB disease in the San Joaquin Valley, but that can change on short notice. Where ACP shows up, HLB disease (spread by a bacterium) is usually only a few years behind.
- Author: Ben Faber
The weather is perfect for looking for Asian Citrus Psyllid. There is new flush and that is where the adults go to lay their eggs and feed. This is also the tissue where aphids and scale crawlers will be found, as well.
ACP has been active all this winter, but now is when they are going to be the most noticeable. Get out there and look and alert the CDFA Exotic Pest Hotline to confirm a find, 1-800-491-1899.
ACP adult and nymphs with waxy exudate from nymphs.