An Economic Assessment of the Impact of Huanglongbing on Citrus Tree Plantings in Florida

Abstract

<jats:p>Huanglongbing (HLB) was first discovered in Florida in 2005. It can now be found in all counties in the state where commercial citrus production takes place. HLB is a bacterial disease that is transmitted by the Asiatic citrus psyllid. HLB negatively affects citrus producers in several ways, including reduced yield, increased grove maintenance costs, and increased tree mortality. The research presented in this article suggests that another consequence of HLB is its adverse effect on the willingness of producers to invest in new plantings. Reduced plantings imply reduced fruit production in the future.</jats:p>

Suitability of native North American Rutaceae to serve as host plants for the Asian citrus psyllid (Hemiptera: Liviidae)

“…In Florida where the disease has been present for a decade, its incidence is nearly 100%. From 2006 to 2012, it has caused an economic impact of some $4.5 billion with a concomitant loss of over 8000 jobs (Hodges and Spreen 2012;Spreen et al 2014). In Texas, HLB was first detected in 2012 and has since been confirmed in more than 100 groves and 170 residential sites (da Grac ßa et al 2015).…”

Machine Learning for Characterization of Insect Vector Feeding

“…The Florida citrus industry alone has seen five years of unprecedented decline resulting in billions of dollars of lost revenue and jobs [21]. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicted a precipitous drop in citrus production in 2016 to 69 million boxes in Florida, well below a peak of 242 million boxes as recently as 2004 [22].…”

Absence of windbreaks and replanting citrus in solid sets increase density of Asian citrus psyllid populations

“…Among these recommended measures for HLB management, the removal of symptomatic trees is the most controversial and difficult to accomplish by citrus growers. First, it increases per-acre orchard maintenance costs by %$400 annually (Spreen et al, 2014); second HLB is already widespread throughout Florida with 40% of citrus trees in Florida infected with Clas in 2012 (Spann and Schumann, 2012), and between 37.5 to 100% of D. citri infected with CLas (Coy and Stelinski, 2015); and third newly planted young trees designated to replace removed trees are more susceptible to Clas infection than mature trees (Brlansky et al, 2014). This is likely because young trees produce more newly emerging leaves termed "flush", which is the only site of D. citri egg laying and nymphal development (Hall and Albrigo, 2007).…”

“…Consequently, young citrus trees can be infested and infected soon after planting and die faster than mature trees (Gottwald et al, 2007) and before reaching the fruit bearing stage (Brlansky et al, 2014;Grafton-Cardwell et al, 2013). Therefore, many growers have abandoned infected tree removal and instead are attempting to prolong life and productivity of diseased trees with intense supplemental applications of micronutrients (Gottwald et al, 2012;Spreen et al, 2014;Stansly et al, 2014). This has led to widespread abandonment of systematic removal of infected trees and many growers prefer to wait until the entire orchard becomes unproductive to abandon it and replant solid set re-plantings (SSRPs).…”

“…This issue is referred to as the "bad neighbor effect" (Spreen et al, 2014) and is caused by growers who fail to remove HLB-infected trees or to manage their D. citri populations. This likely contributes to infection of neighboring orchards with CLas-infected psyllids.…”