Asian Citrus Psyllids Confirmed In Orange County - Testing Pending For Citrus Greening Disease

The discovery in Santa Ana of a tiny insect that typically carries a tree-killing disease has brought California's $1.6-billion citrus industry one step closer to an agricultural disaster, experts said.

State agricultural officials said Tuesday that they recently trapped five adult Asian citrus psyllids on a lemon tree at a home in Santa Ana. They have sent the insects off to a lab to see whether they are carrying the bacteria that causes citrus greening, a disease that has ravaged groves in Florida and wiped out much of the citrus industries in China, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Brazil. Until now, the bugs had been found in San Diego and Imperial counties, but the nearest outbreaks of citrus greening itself are in Louisiana and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Test results are expected later this week or next week.

"Wherever the psyllid goes, the disease has followed. . . . Our only hope is to find the disease early and try to deal with it," said Ted Batkin, president of the Citrus Research Board in Visalia. "Having it as far north as Santa Ana means that the pest could be anywhere in the entire Los Angeles basin. This is not good. We are not containing the pest," Batkin said.

Other experts also believe there is little chance that state and federal efforts to prevent the disease from reaching California will be successful. "It is just a matter of time," said Beth Grafton-Cardwell, a UC Riverside entomologist based in the San Joaquin Valley. "Beating down the number of psyllids will help slow it but not stop it."

The bacterial disease, also called Huanglongbing, or HLB, ruins the taste of fruit and juice before killing the plants, experts said, and there is no known cure or method for ridding a region of the pathogen once it has struck. It's transmitted to healthy trees by the psyllid after the insect feeds on infected trees. It does not afflict humans.

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-psyllids26-2009aug26,0,5756807.story