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Residential Citrus Survey starts in Lower Rio Grande ValleySearch is on for Citrus Greening and its vector Texas Trained teams of insect scouts are fanning out across the Rio Grande Valley during early September in a year-long, door-to-door search for a disease that kills citrus trees and the insect that spreads it, experts say. Starting in the Mission and McAllen areas, 28 employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be knocking on doors Valley-wide, asking homeowners for permission to inspect their citrus trees, said Dr. John da Graca, director of the Texas A&M-Kingsville Citrus Center in Weslaco. The scouts have been trained to spot symptoms of citrus greening disease and its vector, the citrus psyllid, he said. "This survey is strictly voluntary," da Graca said, "but we're asking homeowners to cooperate in this very important early detection and prevention effort to maintain the health of the Valley's citrus trees." While greening may sound like a good thing, it's the worst disease that could hit citrus trees, said Larry Hawkins, a USDA specialist working with da Graca in the survey effort. "Greening is an incurable disease that kills the stem at the point where the fruit is attached, shutting off the water and nutrients that fruit needs to mature," Hawkins said. "The fruit won't form properly or color up, hence the name greening. It's left with a very sharp bitter taste and an oblong shape, rendering it worthless to the market. The tree then starts declining until it dies." "Greening was first reported in India in 1750," da Graca said. "From there, it spread throughout Asia and many parts of Africa, ravaging citrus production areas. It was found in Brazil in 2004, in Florida in 2005 and this year it was detected in a single tree in Louisiana." Greening is not harmful to humans, but can ravage commercial citrus production as it has in Florida, he said. The disease is spread from tree to tree by the citrus psyllid (pronounced SILL-id) as it feeds on the underside of leaves. The insects, slightly smaller than houseflies, carry the bacterium in their probing mouth parts from diseased trees to healthy trees. They have a unique physical characteristic in that their tails stick up from their bodies at a 45 degree angle. "So far, psyllids have been found on citrus in 36 Texas counties, da Graca said. "These would include counties throughout South Texas, and even in East Texas, in Houston and College Station." Da Graca said industry leaders in citrus-producing states still free of greening, including California, want to be assured that Texas is also disease-free. "Hopefully, at the end of this survey, we'll be able to certify Texas as being free of greening so that we can continue shipping our fruit and trees without restrictions," he said. Mayra Arredondo, the USDA Plant Protection and Quarantine supervisor who oversees the surveying effort, said the scouts wear clearly marked USDA vests and carry government-issued identification credentials. "It will take about a year to survey residential sites in Valley areas totaling about 100 square miles," she said. "We won't inspect every tree, but we have identified on a map 72 sites per square mile that our inspectors will be surveying." If a citrus tree can be spotted from the street or alley, inspectors will knock on doors asking for permission to enter the property and inspect one tree, she said. "If residents refuse, no problem; we'll move on," she said. "But if we are allowed access, we'll inspect the tree most likely to host greening or psyllids." Hawkins said the inspectors will leave the property with only two things: the GPS location of the tree and tree specimens, including suspicious leaves and/or insects. "We're not interested in gathering any other type of information," he said. "And we're not asking residents to conduct the survey themselves. Let us do it, so we can send anything suspicious to the Citrus Center in Weslaco for a lab analysis." Arredondo said if residents are not home at the time inspectors arrive, they will leave a door hanger with information about the survey and how to arrange a return visit. For more information about the survey, contact Arredondo at 956-584-8767. 9/29/08 Date: 9/19/08
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