NEW ORLEANS — Just as south Louisiana’s citrus growers are starting to recover from Hurricane Katrina, they have a new threat: a fatal citrus disease that has infected thousands of trees in Florida and is now in the Bayou State.
Citrus greening disease has been confirmed so far only in New Orleans. But the tiny brown bug, or psyllid, that spreads it has been found there and in three other parishes, including Plaquemines Parish, the heart of Louisiana’s citrus groves.
“That is bad news,” said Ben Becnel, who has about 400 trees on 40 acres in Belle Chasse, southeast of New Orleans. “Florida is hurting. We’ve been saying around here we were hoping this would hold off long enough to where there was some kind of treatment or remedy or something.”
Citrus greening disease, known in China as “huang long bing” or yellow dragon disease, first keeps fruit from ripening. Then it kills the tree, sometimes in as few as three or four years, said James Vaughn, Louisiana State University AgService agent in Plaquemines Parish.
“The main concern is the tree doesn’t show symptoms for a year or two,” while psyllids can spread the disease from it, he said.
There’s no way to treat the disease, so farmers must cut and burn infected trees.
Vaughn said the psyllid can be killed with sprays or an imported predator, but experts need to know how far it has spread to decide on the best treatment.
Officials in Plaquemines Parish, which produced two-thirds of last year’s citrus crop, scheduled a meeting recently with growers to discuss ways to keep citrus greening disease from spreading into the parish.
Citrus, a late-fall and early-winter crop in Louisiana, was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The farm value went from $6.3 million in 2004 to $4.5 million and $3.6 million in the next two years.
Although Louisiana had only about 60 percent of its 2004 acreage in citrus last year, good prices and a bumper harvest of satsumas brought the value back up to $6.4 million.
Now growers have to deal with a pest and disease that has been threatening Florida’s $9 billion citrus industry since 1998. In Florida, citrus greening, along with citrus canker, has forced the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of trees in the past decade. Neither disease harms humans.
Citrus greening disease hasn’t been found in any of Louisiana’s commercial groves. So far, the psyllid has only been found at 34 homes and five retail garden centers in Orleans, Plaquemines, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes, and on a single plant at one retail center in Lafourche Parish, according to state Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain.
“We have many more backyard trees than commercial trees in the state,” Vaughn said.
