- Author: Ben Faber
Beth Grafton-Cardwell our IPM Specialist who is Lindcove Research and Extension Director and a UC Riverside Entomologist recently gave a talk on the different approaches being taken to confront Asian Citrus Psyllid and Huanglongbing. A summary of a lot of her points is available at:
http://ucanr.edu/repositoryfiles/ACP_Fact_Sheet-101755.pdf
She brought up some points that I think need to be better known. Some early detection techniques are being developed so that infected trees can be quickly identified and removed so that they do serve as a reservoir of inoculum that can increase the spread of the bacterial disease. These techniques are based on measureable levels of different chemicals.
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Sick trees produce different volatiles (Volatile Organic Compounds can be “sniffed” by machines or trained dogs)
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Sick trees produce proteins that can be measured
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Trees produce small RNAs in their defense response that can be measured
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The bacteria produce proteins that can be measured
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The micro-organisms associated with sick trees are different than those associated with healthy trees and these can be measured.
All of these techniques are being tested out right now and being refined. It will mean faster diseased tree identification and removal. This will still mean chemical control of the psyllid to control disease spread.
Early detection is just one of the techniques being employed to fight this insect/disease complex. Every conceivable possibility is being explored, including:
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Psyllid traps – attract and kill
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Psyllid deterrents – chemicals that would drive psyllids away from citrus
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Antibiotic treatments to control the tree infection
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Heat treating trees to destroy the bacteria in the tree
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Resistant rootstocks and scions (traditional breeding and genetic engineering)
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Utilize an altered citrus tristeza virus to introduce anti-HLB genes into plants (Genetically Engineered)
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Altering the psyllid so it can't vector the disease and releasing the ‘nupsyllid' to replace the wild ones (GE)
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Treat trees with chemicals (interference RNAs) that prevent the psyllid from picking up the disease
Wow. Many of these are a long way off, but some might be coming out soon. We still need to deal with the psyllid so that when infected insects become more widespread, the disease will not spread as fast as it has in Florida and other citrus growing areas.
- Author: Ben Faber
The word is getting out. If you have yellowish leaves, cupped/upright and the fruit is small, it may not be Huanglongbing (HLB), but it sure seems like all of my neighbors think so. It could be just lack of water, and in a drought, that could be the most likely cause. But there are other causes of symptoms that might be associated with HLB. Citrus Stubborn Disease causes these symptoms, but also distorted fruit and shriveled, discolored seeds, and bitter fruit like HLB. Under very hot conditions, leaves on some shoots may have misshaped, blunted yellow tips with mottling similar to the nutritional deficiencies seen in HLB. The leaves can have shortened internodes, so there's a bunchy growth habit like in zinc deficiency. Fruit are small, sparse and have early drop. Again, a lot like HLB. Even more so, though Stubborn can cause stunted, thin canopies. Misshapen fruit, though can be caused by bud mites in lemon, chimeras (spontaneous mutations) and Tristeza (a viral disease). Frost damage can add further to the confusion about symptoms that might be associated with HLB.
Citrus Stubborn Disease is a serious disease that leads to reduced fruit quality and yield. It occurs most commonly in oranges, but does show up in other citrus including lemon and mandarin. It's more commonly seen in older trees that were initially propagated with infected tissue, and growing in hot, dry environments. Unlike HLB, it doesn't lead to the death of the tree, just major loss of income. It's caused by a phytoplasma (a bacteria without a cell wall) and is spread by a leafhopper. There are other hosts like mustard and cabbage that can harbor the organism to be spread to new tissue and especially young trees. Warm winters favor the spread of the infected leafhopper, like we have had this winter.
So how do you distinguish between all the possible causes that look like HLB? HLB can be tested for as well as Tristeza. There are no commercial labs that check for Stubborn. It's basically a process of elimination then to decide to test for HLB or to think that the tree has the disease. So, know your trees and their history. Was there a freeze this winter? Know the effects and symptoms of drought and monitor soils and trees for water stress. Check for bud mite. It also takes time from the point of infected Asian Citrus Psyllid invasion to the time when symptoms of HLB start showing up in the tree. So keep your eyes open, but don't assume the worse at this point.
More on Tristeza:
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r107101311.html
Stubborn:
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r107101211.html
Images:
Misshaped fruit from Stubborn
Discolored seeds from Stubborn
Reduced canopy size from Stubborn
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A tell-tale sign of spring in California is a flush of new leaf growth on citrus trees. Because the feathery light green leaves are particularly attractive to Asian citrus psyllids (ACP), the leaves' emergence marks a critical time to determine whether the pest has infested trees.
“We encourage home citrus growers and farmers to go out with a magnifying glass or hand lens and look closely at the new growth,” said Beth Grafton-Cardwell, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) citrus entomologist. “Look for the various stages of the psyllid – small yellow eggs, sesame-seed sized yellow ACP young with curly white tubules, or aphid-like adults that perch with their hind quarters angled up.”
Pictures of the Asian citrus psyllids and its life stages are on the UC ANR website at http://ucanr.edu/acp. If you find signs of the insect, call the California Food and Agriculture (CDFA) Exotic Pest Hotline at (800) 491-1899.
Asian citrus psyllids are feared because they can spread huanglongbing (HLB) disease, an incurable condition that first causes yellow mottling on the leaves and later sour, misshapen fruit before killing the tree. ACP, native of Pakistan, Afghanistan and other tropical and subtropics regions of Asian, was first detected in California in 2008. Everywhere Asian citrus psyllids have appeared – including Florida and Texas – the pests have found and spread the disease. A few HLB-infected trees have been located in urban Los Angeles County. They were quickly removed by CDFA officials.
“In California, we are working hard to keep the population of ACP as low as possible until researchers can find a cure for the disease,” Grafton-Cardwell said. “We need the help of citrus farmers and home gardeners.”
Grafton-Cardwell has spearheaded the development of the UC ANR ACP website for citrus growers and citrus homeowners that provides help in finding the pest and what to do next. The site has an interactive map tool to locate residences and farms that are in areas where the psyllid has already become established, and areas where they are posing a risk to the citrus industry and must be aggressively treated by county officials.
The website outlines biological control efforts that are underway, and directions for insecticidal control, if it is needed. An online calculator on the website allows farmers and homeowners to determine their potential costs for using insecticides.
There are additional measures that can be taken to support the fight against ACP and HLB in California.
- When planting new citrus trees, only purchase the trees from reputable nurseries. Do not accept tree cuttings or budwood from friends or relatives.
- After pruning or cutting down a citrus tree, dry out the green waste or double bag it to make sure that live psyllids won't ride into another region on the foliage.
- Control ants in and near citrus trees with bait stations. Scientists have released natural enemies of ACP in Southern California to help keep the pest in check. However, ants will protect ACP from the natural enemies. Ants favor the presence of ACP because the psyllid produces honeydew, a food source for ants.
- Learn more about the Asian citrus psyllid and huanglongbing disease by reading the detailed pest note on UC ANR's Statewide Integrated Pest Management website.
- Assist in the control of ACP by supporting CDFA insecticide treatments of your citrus or treating the citrus yourself when psyllids are present.
- Support the removal of HLB-infected trees.
- Author: Ben Faber
To help Ventura County's citrus community better understand the nature of the ACP epidemic — and the bitter lessons from Florida's failure to address it proactively — Farm Bureau and the ACP-HLB Task Force will host a workshop on Dec. 2. As speakers, we've invited three experts whose presentations were among the most compelling at last February's International Research Conference on HLB in Florida:
- Mike Irey, director of research and business development for Southern Gardens Citrus (which farms nearly 15,000 acres of oranges in Florida), who will speak about conditions in his state and provide an industry perspective on what it's like to live with HLB for a decade;
- Dr. David Bartels, an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Mission Laboratory in Texas, who will discuss his analysis of HLB survey data and what it can tell us about possible HLB infection sites throughout Southern California;
- Dr. Neil McRoberts, an epidemiologist and associate professor of plant pathology atUC Davis, whose computer modeling and research into the economic and social factors affecting disease spread can help guide development of an HLB management strategy for California.
The workshop will be from 1 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 2, at the Museum of Ventura County, 100 E. Main St., Ventura. It's free, but RSVPs are required. Please contact us at info@farmbureauvc.com or (805) 289-0155 if you plan to attend.
- Author: John Krist
On Aug. 30, Ventura County's citrus growers, pest-control advisers (PCAs) and pest-control operators (PCOs) embarked on the most ambitious program of Asian citrus psyllid suppression in commercial groves ever undertaken in California. The program involves coordinated pesticide treatments across more than 15,000 acres of citrus in the Santa Clara, Las Posas and Santa Rosa valleys. Hundreds of growers, PCAs, PCOs, grove managers and packinghouse field staff — aided by our county's two grower liaisons and the local ACP-HLB Task Force — are working together to pull it off.
This is the second cycle of area-wide management (AWM) treatments in Ventura County. The first was carried out from January through March in the east end of the Santa Clara River Valley. It involved eight of the county's 49 psyllid management areas PMAs and achieved good compliance, with 87 percent of the total acreage being treated (the rate within individual PMAs ranged from 80 percent to 93 percent).
The current cycle, however, involves 36 PMAs, vastly increasing the program's complexity. It also increases the workload for our PCAs and PCOs, and amplifies the consequences of any disruption in the timetable, which requires that all the citrus in each PMA be treated within a narrow two-week window.
And disruptions are precisely what the program has encountered. The extended periods of extreme heat that have cooked the county over the past two months have idled equipment and crews. At the same time, explosions of other pests — particularly broad mite, flaring under the unusually tropical conditions — have diverted resources to non-ACP treatments to avoid immediate economic harm from damaged fruit.
It remains to be seen whether the crews will be able to get back on track, and finish the fall AWM cycle by the end of November as planned. There is also the chance the applicator crews will encounter further delays, either in the form of extreme heat, Santa Ana winds or early rains associated with the strengthening El Niño condition in the Pacific.
As I have reminded members of Ventura county's citrus community numerous times since we began planning the transition to AWM, our program at this stage is a huge experiment with statewide ramifications.
We can't really draw lessons from areas outside California that are attempting area-wide suppression efforts (Texas and Florida) because their circumstances are so different. We have different weather and topography, for one thing. And Florida in particular did not even try to control ACP until most of the state was also infected with Huanglongbing (HLB) disease, so their program has struggled from the start. Our landscape is also quite different, with none of the giant citrus plantations of Florida and a much more complex pattern of intermingled smaller orchards and urban development than anything seen there or in Texas.
We also have little in common with the few other areas in California that are trying to implement AWM (mainly portions of Imperial and San Diego counties) because we have far more acreage and a much greater number of growers. Eventually, the San Joaquin Valley will find itself implementing AWM, at which point California will finally have an AWM program exceeding ours in scale. The very slow pace of ACP detections there, however, suggests that day is still well in the future.
For now, we have to figure out what works — and what doesn't — on our own. Trying to craft policies and protocols while also attempting to implement them is a bit like trying to build a race car while speeding down the track at 200 mph, but we have no other choice. Think of it as “adaptive management” on steroids.
There have been some very productive discussions among members of the Ventura County ACP-HLB Task Force and our hard-working PCA/PCO community, identifying data needs, logistical constraints and strategy options so we can continuously refine and improve the program. One of our chief challenges is adjusting for our equipment and spray crew limitations while still achieving effective ACP suppression, even when the weather and other pests refuse to cooperate.
One piece of very good news that has emerged at the midpoint of our fall AWM cycle is that the California Department of Food and Agriculture has been conducting timely treatments in urban yards within 400 meters of commercial citrus in each PMA. That did not happen last winter, and the result was swift re-infestation of commercial groves from ACP populations in neighboring landscape plants. At our request, and to CDFA's credit, the agency changed its policy and is no longer waiting to determine the level of grower participation before commencing those treatments.
Countering that, however, are scattered reports of growers refusing to participate — some even going so far as to switch packinghouses in order to avoid the policy instituted by responsible houses to suspend picking and packing fruit from an orchard during the PMA treatment window until the treatment has been conducted.
Evading the treatment requirement is irresponsible and fatally short-sighted. We know for a fact that HLB is less than 50 miles from us, and we also know for a fact that ACP from areas to the south — potentially even infected psyllids — is being transported into Ventura County in loads of bulk citrus. Just recently, a psyllid that tested “inconclusive” for HLB — neither positive nor negative — was collected in Piru. It may be a false alarm, and additional testing of psyllids at the same site will be conducted, but when clusters of such ACP have been found in the past, they have indicated locations where trees soon test positive for the disease.
Holdouts in the Ventura County citrus community must stop thinking of the ACP campaign as a battle against a bug, like so many other battles the industry has fought and won in the past. It is not. Ventura County citrus has never before confronted a tree-killing, insect-vectored disease epidemic, and the tools and strategies of conventional pest management will not stop or control it.
Save the date
To help Ventura County's citrus community better understand the nature of the epidemic — and the bitter lessons from Florida's failure to address it proactively — Farm Bureau and the ACP-HLB Task Force will host a workshop on Dec. 2. As speakers, we've invited three experts whose presentations were among the most compelling at last February's International Research Conference on HLB in Florida:
- Mike Irey, director of research and business development for Southern Gardens Citrus (which farms nearly 15,000 acres of oranges in Florida), who will speak about conditions in his state and provide an industry perspective on what it's like to live with HLB for a decade;
- Dr. David Bartels, an entomologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Mission Laboratory in Texas, who will discuss his analysis of HLB survey data and what it can tell us about possible HLB infection sites throughout Southern California;
- Dr. Neil McRoberts, an epidemiologist and associate professor of plant pathology atUC Davis, whose computer modeling and research into the economic and social factors affecting disease spread can help guide development of an HLB management strategy for California.
The workshop will be from 1 to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 2, at the Museum of Ventura County, 100 E. Main St., Ventura. It's free, but RSVPs are required. Please contact us at info@farmbureauvc.com or (805) 289-0155 if you plan to attend.
— John Krist is chief executive officer of the Farm Bureau of Ventura County. Contact him at john@farmbureauvc.com.