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Posts Tagged: Asian citrus psyllid
Targeting the Asian Citrus Psyllid
While you're peeling and segmenting your orange at breakfast or spooning orange honey on your toast, you're probably not thinking about the Asian...
The Asian citrus psyllid, about the size of an aphid, is a major threat to the multibillion dollar citrus industry in the United States.(Photo courtesy of the California Department of Food and Agriculture)
Mark Hoddle, Extension entomologist and director of the Center for Invasive Species Research at the University of California, Riverside, will speak on “Protecting California Agriculture from Invasive Pests: Biocontrol of Asian Citrus Psyllid in Urban Southern California" on Sept. 26 at UC Davis. (Photo Courtesy of UC Riverside)
Dogs enlisted to sniff out disease in citrus trees
The Citrus Research Board is arranging to bring specially trained dogs to the UC Lindcove Research and Extension Center to test their ability to sniff out the devastating citrus disease huanglongbing, reported Bob Rodriguez in the Fresno Bee.
CRB president Gary Schulz is working with the USDA, which is training dogs in Florida to identify trees with huanglongbing soon after the trees are infected. HLB has ravaged Florida's citrus industry. In California, the disease has been found about 800 Southern California backyard trees, but officials have so far managed to keep it out of the state's commercial orchards.
"The USDA has invested million of dollars in detector dogs and they have proven to be a credible diagnostic tool for early detection and screening trees," Schulz said.
HLB is spread by Asian citrus psyllids. Psyllids can pick up the the disease from infected trees and spread it to other trees as they feed. Symptoms may not show up in the tree until a year or two after it is infected. PCR (polymerase chain reaction) is the only way to positively identify huanglongbing infection in citrus. The process requires testing of many leaves or branches from the tree and may return a false negative if the samples selected for testing aren't infected, but other parts of the tree are.
Schulz said the HLB-detection dogs will start their California work in the southern part of the state before traveling north.
Pesticide spray ban could assist spread of huanglongbing disease
A Sacramento County Superior Court judge has ordered California agricultural officials to stop spraying pesticides in parks, schools and residents' backyards to control pests that threaten the ag industry, reported Gregory Mohan in the Los Angeles Times.
CDFA issued a statement saying it will consider appealing the case, and will continue to conduct spraying "in compliance with" state environmental laws.
Julia Mitric of Capital Public Radio spoke to UC Cooperative Extension entomology specialist Beth Grafton-Cardwell about the ruling. Grafton-Cardwell said it's a "huge setback."
She said spraying trees to control Asian citrus psyllid, which spreads the devastating huanglongbing disease of citrus, is crucial to buy time for scientists to develop long-term solutions to the threat.
"The state has managed to contain it to three counties in California — for the moment," Cardwell said. "But it's starting to spread very rapidly and so it's the most critical point in time to limit the psyllid spread."
Targeting the Asian Citrus Psyllid
A major citrus pest may experience a “Bah, Humbug!” kind of year. If all goes as planned, UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal's...
The Asian Citrus Psyllid Team: Scientists in the front row (from left) are Tatiana Mulinari, Rodrigo Magnani, Antonio Juliano Ayres, Walter Leal, Marcelo Miranda, Victoria Esperanca, Odimar Zanardi, and Rejane Luvizotto. The three scientists in back are Haroldo X. L. Volpe (white shirt) Renato de Freitas and Rômulo Carvalho.
Ground-Breaking Research: Sex Pheromone of Asian Citrus Psyllid Discovered
The Asian citrus psyllid, the most devastating threat to the worldwide citrus industry, may have met its match. In a ground-breaking discovery...
This is the Asian citrus psyllid, a mottled brown insect about 3 to 4 millimeters long, or about the size of an aphid. Widespread throughout Southern California, it is now found in 26 of the state's 58 counties. (CDFA Photo)
UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal has just discovered the sex pheromone of the Asian citrus psyillid. He has also discovered the sex pheromones of a number of other insects, including moths (background). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal (left) talks with FUNDECITRUS director Juliano Ayres on Dec. 5 at the 10th Annual Meeting of Chemical Ecology in Sao Paulo.
