How Biocontrol Helps Fight the Asian Citrus Psyllid
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By Thomas Grandperrin of UAV-IQ Precision Agriculture. This article is part of a series on biological control and Integrated Pest Management written by UAV-IQ (www.uaviq.com). See other articles in this series: 'Most of our biocontrol customers are conventional growers' - Chrissie Davis of Koppert Biological Systems Digital integrated pest management: A conversation with Farm Dog's founder and CEO Is Integrated Pest Management the future of agriculture? With the high volume of globally traded agricultural products as well as the impacts of climate change on pest patterns, growers are facing the arrival of exotic pests which can quickly spread and threaten yields. This is especially threatening when a newly introduced pest has no natural enemies in its new habitat. One of the current threats citrus growers around the world are facing is the Asian citrus psyllid, which is a vector of the lethal citrus greening disease. Dr. Mark Hoddle, an entomologist and biological control specialist at the University of California Riverside, has led several research projects evaluating methods to control these invasive pests in citrus, avocados and grapes. During our conversation we discussed how the state of California has managed to hold the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) at very low levels thus far by using a classical biocontrol approach. Mark elaborated on the importance of augmented and conservation biocontrol as well as ant management in the fight against ACP and other sap-sucking pests, and he also told me more about implementing proactive biocontrol programs as insurance against potential invasive exotic pests. Classical biocontrol of the Asian citrus psyllid FreshFruitPortal.com According to the USDA, the citrus greening disease (also known as Huanglongbing or HLB) has wiped-out 74 percent of the Florida citrus industry since 2005, creating a high level of nervousness among growers of California and other citrus producing areas who fear that the same situation could repeat itself in their orchards. Asian citrus psyllid adult feeding on citrus. Credit: Mike Lewis, Center for Invasive Species Research, UC Riverside But over 12 years after the Asian citrus psyllid was first detected in California, the state still hasn't witnessed any massive epidemic level outbreaks of Asian citrus psyllid in commercial citrus orchards. How did it manage to hold this pest in check? Mark Hoddle is one of the best people to answer this question. When the spread of the Asian citrus psyllid became an obvious threat in Southern California he, along with members of the team he is leading at UC Riverside, started to monitor field sites from Los Angeles all the way to Riverside County for about three years. They noticed the insect densities were very high on unmanaged trees in urban areas and in parks. In parallel, they began to study the potential biocontrol options and identified Tamarixia radiata, a parasitoid of the Asian citrus psyllid that was imported from Pakistan. After doing safety testing and quarantine in the UC Riverside facility to demonstrate that it wouldn't be an environmental threat, they finally got the permission to start releasing it. FreshFruitPortal.com Mark Hoddle in Pakistan collecting Tamarixia radiata, a natural enemy of Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri. Credit: Unknown, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan. The releases were done primarily in urban areas instead of commercial orchards for two main reasons. The first one is that the industry was very worried about the spread of HLB, so citrus growers were almost always spraying their orchards if they found Asian citrus psyllids, giving the beneficials no chance to survive. “We'd be putting our parasitoids, which are difficult and expensive to rear, into a toxic environment where they'd probably die almost immediately. So it makes no sense to do that. On the other hand, trees in urban areas are generally not sprayed with insecticide,” points out Mark. The second reason is the extent of the agricultural-urban interface in California, which are the zones pressing up very closely to agricultural areas. These urban trees could act as incubators for Asian citrus Psyllid which would fly out of people's backyards and into citrus orchards. Mark adds that, “we thought that if we could establish our natural enemies in people's FreshFruitPortal.com backyards, not only would we control Asian citrus psyllid, but we would reduce that invasion pressure coming out of these urban areas into commercial citrus groves.” After the initial releases, Tamarixia established very readily and spread thanks to the abundance of food for it in the citrus trees. At the time, no predators were using Asian citrus psyllid populations for food, so Tamarixia were finding hundreds of psyllid nymphs on the trees that it could parasitize for its larvae to feed on. Tamarixia radiata parasitizing an Asian citrus psyllid nymph. Credit: Mike Lewis, Center for Invasive Species Research, UC Riverside They performed various monitoring research: life table studies where they followed the fates of individual Asian citrus psyllids on citrus trees, population counts and also videography studies. Mark details the process: “We set up little micro video cameras in citrus trees that were solar-powered and we filmed little clusters or colonies of Asian citrus Psyllid 24 hours a day, seven days a week until they had either emerged as adults or they had been killed and FreshFruitPortal.com eaten.” Based on the results of their three years' study, the UC Riverside team concluded “that natural enemies were the driving factor that had caused Asian citrus psyllid to decline by about 70% in people's backyards.” The mass rearing and release program has since then been passed over to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CFDA), allowing the operations to scale up and go from thousands of these parasitoids reared per year to millions of them. The role of IPM and conservation biocontrol in the fight against the Asian citrus psyllid Is classical biocontrol the only non-chemical method proven to prevent major Asian citrus psyllids outbreak? Not necessarily. Naturally occurring enemies or augmented release of beneficial insects in IPM orchards, while probably not enough by themselves, could also have an important part to play. Similar to what Chris Sayer, a citrus grower in Ventura County,California also suggested, Mark believes that one reason why Asian citrus psyllid has not blown up in areas with a long tradition of integrated pest management (IPM) is because orchards that are under minimal chemical management have very good biotic resistance, mainly from natural enemies. “I've completed a couple of studies which suggest that the most important predator attacking Asian citrus psyllid nymphs are the larvae of hover flies and syrphid flies. They recruited very strongly to Asian citrus psyllid colonies. The female hover flies laid their eggs on those colonies and the larvae just obliterated colonies of Asian citrus psyllids. They destroyed them all!”, Mark relates. To attract and help these beneficial insects establish, Mark has looked at sweet alyssum as a cover crop in citrus orchards. He demonstrated that it is highly attractive to hoverflies, which, as a bonus to growers, is also a predator of mealybugs. This low growing, flowering creeping plant does very well in sunny areas. It requires minimal management and doesn't interfere with machining equipment. Proactive biological control as an insurance against new invasive pests. HLB, and its vector the Asian citrus psyllid, is also a threat to other citrus growing countries such as Chile, Peru, Spain or Italy. These countries are not impacted by the pest yet, so could they get ahead of the game? Mark is promoting a simple, but yet effective concept FreshFruitPortal.com called “Proactive biological control” that should be seen as an insurance against potential invasive exotic pests. He observes that: “If you're looking out on the pest horizon from California, or maybe even Chile and you see some obvious pests that have high invasion potential, doesn't it make sense to get ahead of that problem before it actually arrives in your country or in your state? "Typically, what we do in classical biological control is that we react to the invasion. We have a pretty good idea that the pest is coming, maybe it's even been intercepted a few times, but we don't do anything. We react when the pest is finally established, spreading, and causing economic damage. "Only then we initiate the biological control program. In that scenario, we lose years of time. So when there is an obvious threat like the Asian citrus psyllids, why not start saving that time now by beginning a proactive program?” He also explains the complexity of a classical biocontrol program, justifying this proactive approach. “We have to do the foreign exploration, look for the natural enemies, bring them back to quarantine, do the required safety testing, analyze all the data, begin the process of requesting permission to release those natural enemies from quarantine if the data indicates that they're safe... "You're probably looking at about three to five years before you could get anything released into the environment. So why not start saving that time now by beginning a proactive program? You could have the tests done, safety demonstrated, have all the permits ready for release. "And when Asian citrus psyllid shows up and establishes in Chile, for example, and has spread over such a big area that eradication and containment are no longer considered possible, you can begin the biological control program virtually the next day.” Mark is currently working on two proactive biological control programs. The first one, in collaboration with Dr. Kent Daane at UC Berkeley, looks at the natural enemies of the spotted lantern fly, a pest of grapes and nuts with a high invasion potential into California.