Sustainable Management of Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) and Citrus Production

Sustainable Management of Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) and Citrus Production

Report Date: 01/14/2021
Project: 18-052C   Year: 2020
Category: ACP Vector
Author: Jawwad Qureshi
Sponsor: Citrus Research and Development Foundation

In this quarter, monitoring of ACP and beneficial insects continued in all the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs established for ACP control under this project, including  1.         conventional and organic insecticides plus biological control, 2.         organic insecticides, and Horticultural Mineral Oil (HMO) plus biological control, 3.         conventional insecticides plus biological control 4.         HMO plus biological control. 5.            biological control only. Six biweekly samplings were conducted between October-December. As expected for Fall, trees were not flushing; therefore, ACP populations low. ACP adults averaged 0.1 or less per tap sample across all programs; therefore, spray treatments were not required until December, when the first dormant spray was conducted. The dormant applications included Imidan in programs 1 and 3, Pyganic + 435 oil (2%) in program 2, and 435 oil (2%) in program 4. No ACP adults were detected in the tap sampling conducted two weeks after the dormant spray application in programs 1-4; however, an average of 0.5 adults per tap sample was detected in program 5, which does not include insecticide use. We screened five populations from the five programs established in the field and started testing those for resistance against commonly used insecticides, including a population from a colony established at the SWFREC for several years.  Spiders and lacewings continue to be the two dominant groups of predators present across all programs. This quarter spiders averaged at 60% of the collected specimens and lacewings at 30%. We used the field-collected population to establish the colonies of three lacewings species that we found in the field. Testing the lacewings on ACP nymphs’ diet revealed that 75% Ceraeochrysa cubana, and 65% Ceraeochrysa claveri, developed to adulthood. We also initiated experiments to test the lacewings and the parasitoid Tamarixia radiata for their tolerance to different insecticides used in the citrus groves. Tamarixia radiata was also released in all programs; however, evaluations on parasitism rates were not possible due to the non-availability of nymphs. We also initiated collecting data on the fruit drop, which will continue into the next quarter. Findings from these programs were presented at the Annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America and grower meetings.  In the next quarter, we will be monitoring the population of ACP and making spray applications as needed. Studies on biological control will include monitoring the predatory insects’ natural populations, releasing, and evaluating the commercially available predators and the parasitoid Tamarixia radiata, tolerance/resistance of ACP, lacewings, and parasitoid to commonly used insecticides. We will also collect the leaf samples to do qPCR analysis to determine the incidence of HLB. We also hope to get the harvest done in the next quarter and obtain yield data.        


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