HLB Grower Web Tool

Background

Since the late 18th century, Huanglongbing (HLB) has devastated citrus production across 40 countries spanning Asia, Africa, and the Americas. It arrived in North America in 1998 when the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP), the insect that carries the disease, was first discovered in Florida. Within seven years, HLB was detected there as well, followed by a rapid spread of the disease, resulting in a $4.5 billion loss to the Florida economy by 2011 and decreased production by 8 million tons per year by 2020. In August 2020 CDFA announced discovery of the first infected psyllid in a commercial citrus grove in southern California, renewing concern about how best to handle the threat of HLB in California. This interactive site has been designed to assist in that discussion by providing growers with information on the potential economic consequences of different ACP spraying strategies.

How to use this tool

Enter details for your grove below. The default values shown in the enter boxes are based on a recent University of California Cost and Returns Study. Change them to fit your operation. Then select the percentage of neighbors who will particpate in coordinated spraying and the pesticide efficacy rate. Once the information is entered you will observe the output graphs change revealing a preferred psyllid mitigation strategy. The information here is based on the current reccomendations prescribed by the California Psyllid Management Areas (PMA). See the helpful links section for more information. Each graph has three colored lines: red for taking no action, blue for spraying in a 60-day window of your PMA prescribed dates, and green for spraying in a 21-day window of those dates. If you want a quick answer to the most profitable strategy, the first graph shows cumulative profit over the desired time period. The other two graphs show the percentage of the grove infected with HLB following initial infection and the effect of the spread on relative yields, respectively.

More Information

Funding to support the development of this tool provided by a CDFA grant (#19-0001-034-SF), the Regents of the University of California, and USDA-NFA ECDRE grant (#2017-70016-26053), and computing resources were provided by the IBM Power Systems Academic Initiative. For more information about the research that powers this tool, check out the research notes and publication in the links section or contact us at kaplanj@csus.edu.

Disclaimer

The insights generated from this tool are based on the simulated outcomes of representative California citrus growers. Many factors that influence a particular operation such as weather and geography could cause your results to differ from the information presented here. Additional management strategies such as tree removal can influence HLB spread as well, but are not considered here. For personalized information about HLB and running an operation in your region, please consult your local extension agents and pest advisors.

Helpful Links

Technical details of this tool
ACP Eradication Strategies
Treatment Schedules by Region
UC Extension Cost and Returns Study
Research Note 1 (Survey Results)
Research Note 2 (Survival Analysis)

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