Calif. Citrus Farmers Fear Tree-Killing Disease

FILE - This image provided by the USDA Agricultural Research Service shows adult Asian citrus...

FILE - This image provided by the USDA Agricultural Research Service shows adult Asian citrus psyllid bugs on a plant. Central California citrus growers are getting ready to fight for their livelihoods, after a pest, the fruit-fly-sized Asian citrus psyllid, that can carry a disease fatal to lemon and orange trees was spotted closer than ever before to their crops. (AP Photo/USDA Agricultural Research Service, David Hall)

(AP)

Tom Mulholland is girding for battle against a tiny enemy that could devastate the orange grove he has spent his life cultivating. His adversary: the Asian citrus psyllid, a fruit-fly-sized insect with red eyes and a long, leaf-penetrating beak.

The psyllid, which can carry an incurable disease fatal to citrus trees, was spotted in August in Los Angeles, closer than ever before to the ribbon of central California where the state's $1.6 billion citrus-growing industry is concentrated.

The feared infestation has prompted Mulholland and other citrus-belt farmers to put screens around their young seedlings, vigorously inspect their mature trees and tax themselves to fund research to stop the psyllid.

"It's like a war," Mulholland said in his tidy office set amid some 400 acres of radiantly healthy Clementine and Satsuma trees on his farm some 200 miles north of Los Angeles in the San Joaquin Valley at the base of the foothills beneath Sequoia National Park. "We're sitting here trying to stop this thing, and it wants to keep pushing in."

California growers and agricultural officials are worried the state's citrus industry will be crippled by the disease carried by the psyllid, which devastated Florida's crops. The two states produced about 97 percent of the nation's 12 million tons of citrus during the fiscal year ending in June.

The huanglongbing disease, which spoils the flavor of the fruit and ultimately kills the tree, has been found in all of Florida's 32 citrus-producing counties since its discovery there in 2005, causing about $100 million in damages, said Andrew Meadows, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual, the state's grower trade association.

Florida officials have warned that their $9 billion citrus industry could be wiped out in a decade if a solution isn't found to the disease, also known as citrus greening because of the sickly green cast it lends to infected fruit.

"That's why California is so alarmed," said David Hall, an entomologist with the USDA's agricultural research service in Florida who worked on a team that sequenced the genome of the bacteria that causes citrus greening.