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Tough Time For Citrus

April 15,2015


ACP,HLB, Port Shutdown,Brown Rot,Red Scale & Fruit Drop …. Plus No Water

There is more than drought worrying Tulare County citrus growers in this, the number-one citrus growing county.

For starters while the county is infested with Asian citrus psyllids (ACP) there is new concern about the deadly disease these critters carry.

A HLB infected tree could in our midst in a backyard residence in Farmersville. The CDFA is testing the citrus tree for the presence of  HLB or citrus greening disease that has wiped out the citrus industry around the world and done $4.5 billion in damages to Florida’s citrus trees. Production in Florida is half what it was in 2005 and grower costs have skyrocketed.

HLB is spread by Asian citrus psyllids. The Farmersville home owner told officials he brought the tree from Oaxaca Mexico,a known hotbed of HLB.

HLB- USDA pic  2015-04-15 at 11.12.38 AM

“We don’t know yet if the tree has the disease but we don’t want to take any chances” says county ag commissioner Marilyn Kinoshita. Additional tests are underway through the CDFA, she adds

“Whether the tree is found to be infected, it needs to come out of the ground and be buried” says industry group Citrus Mutual spokesman Bob Blakeley.

UC Lindcove entomologist Beth Grafton Cardwell says the state of the art test we use is inadequate because symptoms may not show up for a year. “We are expecting CDFA will soon remove the tree to prevent any possible spread.”

Kinoshita says CDFA have more info soon.

Common in Florida and Texas – California has logged only one case of HLB in 2012 in a backyard in Hacienda Heights –  also involving budwood brought in illegally.

Out Of Control

In the meantime, the region’s fourth warm winter in a row is encouraging the psyllids to be flying early says Grafton Cardwell.”We would not expect this level of activity until fall.” Most of the county has been quarantined because of new finds of ACP who have set up permanent residence here.

Grafton Cardwell says the warm winters mean a host of other pests are not dying off from the cold resulting in bigger population each year. ”The red scale problem is out of control.” Left unchecked, red scale can cause trees to die back. She encourages extra treatments by growers to fight the problem.

Kinoshita says the current pest explosion includes more than bugs – squirrels chew on irrigation hoses and dig holes everywhere.

Chinese Market

Then there is the brown rot problem says Bob Blakeley. ”China just shut down all our citrus shipments from Tulare County this month” says Blakeley – due to finding a high incidence of a specific brown rot on fruit shipped into that country.

Blakeley says the brown rot – that is soil born – may have been spread by that big storm in December that splashed the spores up on the trees. Wow, what irony in this dry year!

China is the third largest export destination for our citrus crop says Blakeley, and we export about 25% of the orange crop.

To fight the brown rot problem growers are encouraged not to pick oranges from near the bottom of the tree.

Our exports are off 50% this spring” says Blakeley.

Adding to the export woes was the West Coast shutdown of the ports  that stalled more than 100 loads of oranges says Kinoshita. The upshot is  that prices went down because the domestic  market get was saturated, says Blakeley. Orange prices in 2014-15 were lower than the year before, he says.

Still more weather related problems. Fruit drop this Spring is a problem as the citrus can’t keep on the trees as long as usual and the season has been cut short.

All this and we have not touched on water which will be a big issue for this fall’s  crop if the Friant Kern Canal can’t – like last year- deliver  much water to Eastside citrus growers where more than 70% of them are.

Blakeley expects areas where there is little or no groundwater like Terra Bella, Orange Cove and Lindsay to suffer. ”We will see more orchards bulldozed.”

Farmers are looking long term as advocates encourages locals to support efforts to build more water storage.

How about some good news? This year’s citrus crop is especially good tasting most agree. Blakeley responds that he agrees as well.”But we hope we will have the opportunity to keep producing in the future.”

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