Courtesy: UC ANR
Recent psyllid management meetings sought input from the citrus industry on ways to control Asian citrus psyllids and the spread of huanglongbing disease.
The Asian citrus psyllid continues to be a major concern for the California citrus industry. The psyllid spreads huanglongbing disease, or HLB, which damages fruit and kills off citrus trees. With psyllids found in several counties around the state, president of California Citrus Mutual, Joel Nelson, says it’s a continuing problem. “What’s going on here in the last few months is we have had additional detections of the Asian citrus psyllid in the San Joaquin Valley, the situations in Ventura are becoming greater and we have had additional huanglongbing finds in Los Angeles,” Nelson said. “It’s time to regroup, re-evaluate and update the present program to accomplish the objectives.”
California Citrus Mutual held meetings for growers and others in the citrus industry to update them on the current situation and also to work out new ideas for management. “The whole idea of the meetings was to get input on the industry on how best to stop the spread of the psyllid to the extent possible, suppress the population where it does exist to the extent possible and continue to find HLB before it finds the commercial citrus industry,” Nelson said.