If the pest appears in the San Joaquin Valley's southernmost county, farmers will face a distinct challenge. Most of the citrus fruit harvested in Kern County is shipped to other counties for packing. If the county were to be quarantined, farmers would have to make sure the fruit has been processed and cleaned well enough to eliminate all plant parts - including leaves, stems and debris - and all life stages of the Asian citrus psyllid before shipping to packing houses.
"(The fact) that much of Kern County’s fruit is packed outside the county may make compliance with quarantine regulations potentially more difficult for many growers and packers that produce fruit in Kern County," Kallsen wrote.
Meanwhile, an article by freelance writer Dan Bryant, published earlier this week in Western Farm Press, outlined how the citrus industry is gearing up for Huanglongbing, the devastating citrus disease that can be spread by Asian citrus psyllid (to date, the disease has not appeared in California.)
The story included advice from UC Riverside citrus entomologist Beth Grafton-Cardwell. She told the reporter the telltale, early signs of Huanglongbing are yellowing of newly-flushed citrus foliage.
If Huanglongbing arrives in California, it could be distributed rapidly by the Asian citrus psyllid through backyard plants before moving on to commercial citrus. In that case, nurseries will have to place nursery stock in screen houses to keep it from the Asian citrus psyllid. Some, she said, have already prepared structures.
Immature Asian citrus psyllids.
The package destined for Fresno was mailed from India; the package in Sacramento came from Houston, Texas.
"We know that this has been going on but it is just now that we are getting a feeling for how bad it is as we get more federally funded dog teams out there," the article quoted Beth Grafton-Cardwell, a UC Riverside citrus entomologist based at the UC Lindcove Research and Extension Center in Exeter.
UC scientists are working with CDFA, USDA and the citrus industry to prevent establishment of Asian citrus psyllid in California. But the effort has been met with several recent setbacks. Their greatest fear is for the incurable HLB disease that the psyllid transmits.
Psyllids not infected with HLB were found in Imperial and San Diego counties early last year; this week isolated populations turned up Los Angeles and Orange county backyard citrus trees.
Grafton-Cardwell believes the pests' eventual spread through the state's citrus regions is inevitable.
"It's only a matter of time before the huanglongbing disease finds its way to California from Mexico or elsewhere," Grafton-Cardwell told LA Times reporter Jerry Hirsch.
White, waxy tubules are a tell-tale sign of Asian citrus psyllid.
The Los Angeles Times reported this afternoon that Asian citrus psyllid has been found in a Los Angeles County backyard citrus tree. Just yesterday, officials confirmed the pest was found in Orange County. These were the first finds outside of San Diego and Imperial counties, where the exotic pest was first captured in California in early 2008.
UC citrus entomologist Beth Grafton-Cardwell is asking Californians to pitch in on the battle against Asian citrus psyllid, which in other parts of the world carries the devastating citrus disease Huanglongbing (HLB, or citrus greening disease.)
Anyone with a citrus tree in their yard or apartment complex can look closely at the tender young leaves of the late summer and fall citrus flush, the place where immature stages of Asian citrus psyllid congregate. The small, yellowish-orange nymphs extract sap from the tree as they feed. They excrete honeydew, which can turn leaves and fruit black from sooty mold, and they produce tiny white, waxy tubules.
For more information, see http://ucanr.org/detectingpsyllids. For pictures of Asian citrus psyllid and the symptoms to look for in infested trees, see the accompanying video.
CDFA announced in a news release yesterday that five Asian citrus psyllids were found in the Orange County community of Santa Ana, triggering the first ACP quarantine north of San Diego and Imperial counties.
The northward movement of the psyllid may raise fears of the state's citrus growers, but there is also some good news about the effectiveness of state-sponsored pest eradication programs. CDFA announced in another news release yesterday that a Mediterranean fruit fly infestation San Diego's Spring Valley has been eradicated.
To eradicate the pest, ag officials released nearly 3 million sterile male Medflies over an 11.2 square-mile zone at the core of the quarantine area. Fertile female flies mate with the sterile males but produce no offspring, eventually eradicating the pest.
Medflies can infest over 260 types of fruits and vegetables, threatening California’s crops and exports as well as urban and suburban landscaping and gardens.
CDFA said the new ACP quarantine in Orange County will restrict movement of plant material at wholesale and retail nurseries within five miles of the find site. In addition, the agency is planning a treatment program and monitoring the area to detect additional psyllids.
USDA's ACP map shows where the pest has been found.
While the story's heroine, a plant-sniffing dog named Chelsea, didn't appear in the article until the 17th paragraph, UC Riverside citrus entomologist Beth Grafton-Cardwell was the first expert quoted, way up in the third paragraph.
Grafton-Cardwell told the reporter that a disease carried by the Asian citrus psyllid - an insect already established in northern Mexico - is "a citrus grower's worst nightmare."
Citrus greening disease was established in Florida in 2005 and quickly spread to every citrus-growing county in the state, killing about five percent of trees every year, the Times article said. It has wiped out much of the citrus industries in China, India, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and has ravaged parts of Brazil.
The alert dog pointed officials to a duffel bag at a Fresno FedEx facility. The bag contained curry leaves from India, which turned out to be carrying Asian citrus psyllids infected with the dreaded disease. The bag was separated from a traveller that was visiting family in North Fresno.
Fresno County ag officials placed 100 monitoring traps around the home where the bag was destined, and so far no Asian citrus psyllids have been detected, according to a Fresno Bee story published today.
Scientists are trying to develop citrus trees with resistance to citrus greening disease, but Grafton-Cardwell told Hirsch that such a tree was still probably years off. In the meantime, California officials are focused on setting traps and eradicating psyllid populations.
"We need to buy time for the scientists," Grafton-Cardwell was quoted.
