Citrus Industry

State agriculture inspectors are stepping up their efforts to battle what they believe is an agricultural time bomb. After discovering what's known as the Asian citrus psyllid in the Hillcrest neighborhood of San Diego last week, the farthest north the bug has been found in the city, agriculture officials warned that the bug was rapidly moving north since crossing the Mexican border at Tijuana in July.

An international coalition of citrus farming and agriculture officials are launching a cross-border plan to suppress the march of a tiny insect that threatens California's $1.6-billion citrus industry. The insect often carries a disease that kills citrus trees and has ravaged orchards both in Florida and overseas. Following a series of meetings in Monterrey, Mexico, this week, the coalition said today that the nations agreed to work together to develop strategies to hold down the population of the insect, impose quarantines on the movements of plants and conduct more tests to see how the disease is spreading.

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 carry 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.

A tiny insect that threatens California's $1.6-billion citrus industry has been found near one of the state's commercial citrus growing regions. The Asian citrus psyllid, which has ravaged orchards in Florida as well as overseas, was found in Valley Center in rural San Diego County, the closest the bug has come to a major concentration of citrus groves. Northern San Diego County has about 2,500 acres of commercial citrus trees and is home to the largest concentration of organic citrus farmers in the nation, which will complicate efforts to control the insect, said Ted Batkin, president of the Citrus Research Board.

Another discovery of a tiny disease-carrying insect disclosed by state agriculture officials today demonstrates that California's citrus industry is fighting a war on two fronts. TheCalifornia Department of Food and Agriculture said a detection dog working with inspectors on Wednesday found a package at a FedEx depot in Sacramento that contained at least 100 live Asian citrus psyllids, including juveniles and adults. Officials find that the insect is making its way into the state as a passenger on packages, even as colonies of the bug establish themselves in Southern California after flying north from Mexico.

Leaders of California's $1.6-billion citrus industry said Monday that a disease that was killing orchards worldwide was now rooted in Mexico, and experts warned that it was headed toward the state. Citrus greening disease has infected six citrus trees on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, spread by an infestation of the Asian citrus psyllid. There's a virtual insect highway across the width of Mexico, and once the aphid-like insect hops on, California is in trouble, said Beth Grafton-Cardwell, a UC Riverside entomologist and director of the Lindcove Research and Extension Center, east of Visalia.

It's the stuff professional bug trappers dream of. As he peered at the first fly trap of the day, Ignacio Velazquez spotted his mottled foe, wriggling frantically under the magnifying lens. "I think I actually found one," said the 13-year veteran of the state's Department of Food and Agriculture, a hint of caution in his voice. "At this point, we'd call it a suspect." With 10,000 traps set statewide and about 200 trappers on the prowl, it was a needle-in-a-haystack discovery for Velazquez, an agriculture technician hunting for crop-destroying psyllids in the fruit-tree-lush neighborhood of Echo Park.