Read how one grower switched up their psyllid spraying and expect to see good results for young citrus trees.
Southern Gardens Citrus has long focused its psyllid spraying regimen on young citrus trees, hoping to curtail Asian citrus psyllid populations and keep the young trees free from citrus green for as long as possible. However, it hasn’t worked, so they’ve looked to try a different option, according to an article on CitrusIndustry.net. See what they’re trying and why they think it will be successful below.
New Psyllid Spraying Option
Southern Fardens Citrus’s director of research and business development, Mike Irey, shared the details of the changes in January at the Florida Citrus Show in Fort Pierce.
“The goal of most of the strategies to protect young trees is to get them as big as you can before they get infected, Irey said. “And a lot of people are trying different things, one of which is spraying. And so we were … spraying as often as we could (in young groves) … and it wasn’t enough.” The article maintains that it only took three or four years for the young groves to reach a 100 percent infection rate. Once infected, trees start to decline
Irey explained how they came up with an alternative. “So, maybe we were doing it backwards. We’re spraying the young trees and not the old trees. What would happen if we did it just the opposite: Spray the old trees?”
The company teamed up with UF researchers to conduct mathematical modeling, which indicated spraying older trees would reduce infection in young trees “dramatically.” While it will take a few years to see if the data pans out, but Irey is confident it will.
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