Posted: Thursday, August 13, 2009 10:00 AM
Cecilia Parsons/Capital Press
Jennifer Romero, part of the CDFA survey team, looks at the contents of a vacuum bag to see if it contains Asian citrus psyllids. The survey was conducted in a residential area of Fresno Aug. 10-12.
Crews use dogs, vacuums to hunt for psyllid
No pests found in square-mile quarantine area
By CECILIA PARSONS
Capital Press
The hunt for Asian citrus psyllids in Fresno could be compared to hunting for a needle in a haystack -- except no one really wants to find a psyllid.
Still, survey crews from California Department of Food and Agriculture were busy Aug. 10-12 checking host plants for signs of Asian citrus psyllids and Huanglongbing, a disease they can carry and spread to citrus trees. Jennifer Romero, part of a CDFA survey crew said they were looking at citrus trees in residential areas as well as nurseries and commercial groves.
The hunt was sparked when a psyllid found in a traveler's duffel bag tested positive for the disease. The bag, detected by a sniff dog team from the Fresno County agricultural commissioner's office, was located in a Fresno FedEx facility.
It had been shipped from India and also contained curry leaves. A source quoted in a story in the Aug. 7 Capital Press said the bag contained Kaffir lime leaves.
Finding the pest, which can carry a devastating citrus disease so close to the heart of the state's citrus industry, wasn't unexpected, said Ted Batkin, president of the Citrus Research Board and a member of the state's invasive species advisory board.
Batkin also said it wasn't a surprise to find one of the psyllids was infected with Huanglongbing.
"India has the disease, so it was expected. If the psyllid had come from Florida or Brazil, I would have expected it to carry HLB," said Batkin.
California Department of Food and Agriculture's survey this week in Fresno is a precaution that other shipments received from countries that have Huanglongbing haven't carried in any psyllids, Batkin added.
Workers are using a vacuum to suck insects from host plants as well as yellow sticky traps. However, survey crew member Jennifer Romero said that psyllids aren't attracted to the traps like some other pests. As of Tuesday afternoon, no psyllids had been found in a square mile radius of the address that was the destination of the duffel bag.
That inspectors were able to find the bag inside the FedEx facility shows the system is working, said Batkin.
"That's proof the dogs work. We need more," said Batkin.
Currently six teams of handlers and dogs are operating in Contra Costa, Fresno, Sacramento, San Diego and San Bernardino counties. Four additional teams will be trained in a 10-week course this fall and should be at work in the spring. The new teams will operate in Los Angeles County, Santa Clara County and San Diego County.
Total sniff dog funding for 2009-10 is $1.5 million with $1 million coming from the federal farm bill and the remainder from federal appropriations.
California has been on high alert for Asian Citrus Psyllid infestations for the past year. The pest has been found in Imperial and San Diego counties and officials believe it has moved north from Mexico where infestations have also been found. None of the psyllids trapped and tested from Imperial or San Diego counties has carried Huanglongbing.
Huanglongbing has killed tens of thousands of acres of citrus trees across Florida and Brazil and caused billions of dollars in losses since the psyllid and Huanglongbing were detected there more than ten years ago. Four other states also have the pest and the disease.
Cecilia Parsons is a staff writer based in Ducor. E-mail: cparsons@capitalpress.com.
Comments made about this article
Posted By: RobertW On: 8/13/2009
Title: MIXING IN FAKE PESTS WITH REAL ONES
The Asian citrus psyllid is certainly an insect that deserves our attention. But these real pests and the lack of knowledge of insects from other countries create the opportunity to pretend that other insects are a serious danger, when they are not. This is the strategy that the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is currently using to unnecessarily grow their own budget and to distribute 100's of millions of taxpayer dollars to unnecessary contracts with privileged pesticide manufacturers connected to CDFA. Senator Majority Leader Florez held a hearing to consider eliminating the CDFA or reducing its budget. CDFA does not like to be on the defensive. So instead they have gone on the offensive and found a whole bunch of dangerous pests, some for the very first time. Now they are indispensable, or at least that is the impression CDFA wants to make. If such an agency existed that truly and consistently fought off threats to agriculture, there would be a decision to make as to whether or not it is worth the cost. As CDFA currently exists, with its current management, we would be better off without them. Industry lacks the incentive to fake emergency expenditures as is currently occurring at CDFA, so industry could be more efficient with monies collected and spent. CDFA has recently and repetitively been caught lying regarding programs that they want to perform and programs that boost their own budget. These programs also substantially increase the magnitude and number of unnecessary pesticide contracts that CDFA enters into with large corporate chemical companies. A.G. Kawamura, the secretary of the CDFA, was most notably caught lying on CBS TV news regarding the Light Brown Apple Moth program that Kawamura is so anxious to undertake. http://cbs5.com/investigates/apple.moth.spraying.2.700753.html CDFA has been falsifying the danger of insects that are not well known in this country. CDFA has been making false claims that damage has occurred from some insects. CDFA has not maintained appropriate procedures of chain of custody to insure that the insects they deliver to laboratories for testing are in fact the ones CDFA pretended to pull from fields. CDFA has been using "Phone confirmation" for insect identification rather than the paper-trail method that can be audited by independent parties. CDFA has been attributing damage to their chosen insect when literally thousands of other insects are responsible for all or most all damage that exists. With the recent lack of integrity of the CDFA organization under A.G. Kawamura, the agency is not worth the cost. It is difficult to trust if Kawamura really found another insect or if he brought it intentionally from another place and released it when he needed another "Emergency. CDFA facilitates the maximum sales and profits of privileged chemical pesticide manufacturers and CDFA protects them from liability since the toxic chemicals are delivered through a state program. CDFA talks about protecting food, people and agriculture, but California currently has over 200 million pounds of pesticides applied onto its land and into its air in a single year and EVERY YEAR. And CDFA is making huge strides to increase that amount. That represents about six pounds of toxic materials for every man, woman, child, infant, fetus and pregnant mother. And much of those pesticides are not necessary for bringing food to market. The Agriculture industry can do better than that on their own without the CDFA and particularly if CDFA funds went instead directly to growers to handle water problems and other legitimate challenges of agriculture. Most pests to agriculture are controlled right at the farm where ingenuity and truth exists. Because the Asian Citrus Psyllid is a real pest, we should not get scared, influenced or intimidated to look the other way on other unnecessary insects programs that CDFA creates.