US: Ag official worries about citrus heading to Tulare County

At the end of the Mexican citrus season, trees are stripped of the remaining oranges and trucked to one of the six Tulare County citrus juice facilities —  the only major juicing plants left in California.

According to Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner Marilyn Kinoshita, her staff is already burning the midnight oil inspecting for half a dozen other exotic pests. They are worried about the Asian Citrus Psyllid — a tiny leaf hopper that could piggy-back on truckloads of citrus coming from Mexico this summer — particularly on leaves.

“We have zero tolerance for loads with any leaf material,” said Kinoshita. “But we have to accept loads that carry up to six leaves.”

“Once the load is past the border, nobody inspects it until arrives here,” she said.

The Commissioner — who has only been on the job since January — says her office rejected a load recently that contained 600 pounds of leaf material.

The disease — citrus greening  — “scares us to death,” said Kinoshita, adding that Mexico has the disease and the psyllid that spreads it.

The state and citrus industry have put together a full court press to keep the dreaded disease out of California, but these cross-border trucks could be offering the disease a free ride into the heart of California’s citrus groves.

Kinoshita who has logged more than 16 years working for the Tulare County Ag Commissioner’s office, said efforts are underway to reduce the risk.

“We are trying to convince USDA to lower the leaves per shipment to a zero tolerance,” she said, because of the grave consequences posed by the disease and the little pest that carries it.

“It’s pretty scary it could find its way up here that way” says University of California Lindcove Station Director Dr. Beth Grafton Cardwell.

“I agree with Marilyn,” she said. “It should be zero.”

The cirtus scientist said there are ways to help stop movement of the pest.

“They found out with glassy winged sharpshooter infestations that if they rinsed or brushed the fruit they drastically reduced the number of insects would piggy back their way into an area,” she said.

Grapevine moth a problem, too

The Tulare Ag Commissioner said she has her hands checking traps for the latest big pest to find its way into the Central Valley — the European Grapevine Moth (EFVM). The moth prefers to chew on vineyards, but is also a threat to stone fruit. A quarantine in Fresno County may mean growers will have to fumigate their crop before it can be exported to some countries.

Right next door in Tulare County the stakes are high, as it is the biggest ag export county in the US.

The moth was found around Fresno in recent weeks — enough to trigger a quarantine that Mexico wants to extend countywide even though the pest was not  found in the Reedley area or in Tulare County where most of the stone fruit is grown.

The moth was likely brought in on harvesting equipment from Napa where it has taken hold. Just a handful of the moths have been found near the city of Fresno.

The Fresno County Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) currently have more than 5,000 EGVM traps in place throughout the county. Fresno County will continue to monitor traps in the county and in the quarantine area to determine the area where the pest is present.

European grapevine moth was first detected in Napa County in September of 2009. Since that time, EGVM has been found in Sonoma, Solano and Mendocino counties where eradication efforts are on-going.

EGVM is a grape pest of economic importance in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, southern Russia, Japan and recently Chile. The larva feed on grape flowers and developing fruit.

Response on speed dial

Back on the citrus greening front — USDA, CDFA and the California Citrus Research Board (CCRB) are funding a statewide blanket of traps in both cities and rural areas along with labs to do the testing. The plan is to quickly test the psyllid when found for the disease and be able to identify just where it pops up in order to quarantine the area and eradicate the carrier of the disease.

The pysllid — but most importantly not the disease — has been found in Southern California.
Scientists say it is just a matter of time before it arrives in the Valley, however.

“We want to reduce the population of the psyllid in part because the insect could pick up the disease from some infected tree in the U.S.,” Cardwell said

“We think we will be ready if the insect that tests positive for the disease comes here,” said Ted Batkin, president of the CCRB.

“It’s a lesson we learned from Florida where they waited too long to implement an eradication program once the insect was found,” Batkin said. “Now the disease has taken a stranglehold on the citrus industry in Florida, causing millions in damage and some say portending the industry’s demise.”

Citrus scientist Cardwell said when the psyllid first showed up in Florida it did not carry citrus greening disease either.

In California “we are looking to respond to any find in two or three hours instead of two or three weeks,” like they did in Florida, Batkins said.

In recent months, he noted, the new CCRB Riverside lab was put in place able to test samples in 24 hours.

“Our computers are on speed dial,” Batkin said, noting quick identification of a find will keep the disease from spreading.

Experts suggest the disease that renders fruit inedible and kills the tree will devastate the $9 billion Florida citrus industry forcing the farmers there to genetically engineer their orange trees to stay in business.



Source: recorderonline.com

Publication date: 6/15/2010

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