What is Citrus Greening
Citrus Greening, or "Huanglongbing", Chinese Mandarin: 'Yellow Dragon Disease', is a bacterial infection that attacks citrus trees and similar species. The bactria is Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, but what's we are more concerned about is invasive insect "citrus psyllids", (Diaphorina citri Kuwayama), because they are the vector of the disease. (They spread it.)
The USDA, throughaphis.usda.gov, says HLB or Citrus Greening is the worst threat to U.S. citrus trees. Infected trees, and any material from them must not be moved out of the infected area. I encourage my readers to get the full story here: Citrus Greening How do I know if my tree has citrus greening?
Identifying the infection may be slow because the trees may not show symptoms for months or years. Watch for the psyllids and their eggs.
Once symptoms show up, they include, green color on ripe fruit, blotchy leaves, asymmetric yellowing of the leaves, stunted growth, reduced fruit size and other signs of poor health. The disease eventually kills infected trees. No treatment is available yet, so we must do all we can to prevent it. How can we prevent the disease? Controlling the citrus psyllids is the best option. We do not expect to eradicate it, but rather to keep the population as low as possible using combinations / rotations of malathion, other insecticides and horticultural mineral oil. Some of these are applied to the canopy while others are applied to the soil.
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