The top story in the Fresno Bee business section this morning reports on the relatively high number of citrus trees that had to be removed at the UC Lindcove Research and Extension Center this year due to citrus tristeza virus infection.
Reporter Robert Rodriguez interviewed Lindcove director Beth Grafton-Cardwell. According to the article, she told him that the number of cotton aphids, the pest that is spreading the disease from tree to tree, was high this year.
"We had the best-case scenario for transmitting the virus," Grafton-Cardwell was quoted in the story. "And that's why we saw the numbers jump up."
Citrus trees at the Lindcove REC are the parents of most of California's commercial citrus trees. Nurseries rely on the center's true-to-type bud wood to propagate trees for the industry. But a delay in bud wood release isn't the only side effect of the spread of tristeza virus.
Grafton-Cardwell told the Bee: "The disease problem we have right now has not only affected our abilty to release clean bud wood, but it affects our research as well."
Perhaps the Fresno Bee's headline writer said it best when he topped Rodriguez' story with the title: "Virus bedevils citrus growers."