Oh, dear. This is very bad news, but not too surprising in this day of careless or ignorant purchasing and selling. I don't mean ignorant in an accusatory manner, but in the real sense of the word.

Yes Rhizo, Tex. Ag. Dept. has been fighting it for years. Most recently the problem has been in Rue family plants the the citrus psyllids feed on other than citrus. The biggest one is curry leaf which is imported from Florida. They have turned trucks around only to have them try to reenter on another hi-way. This caper results in truck and load seizure.

The difference between stupid and ignorant... ignorant is curable.

does this mean they will quarantine Texas from shipping out to non citrus states? Im not hip to what happens in this process. I guess we should all start stocking up before none of the citrus states can ship out.

Mike

is this HLB? Bad news indeed if it is.

Citrus greening is the same as the Chinese Huanglongbing (HLB) (I believe it translates to "Yellow Dragon") as it is spread by the Asian citrus psyllid.

It will be really difficult to diagnose when it gets here on the upper Texas Coast since most of our trees are on trifoliate or its hybrids and our soil and/or water plays hell with the trees color. My trees for years have looked much worse than those pictured in all the citrus disease sites. But I deal with it, and get several hundred lbs. from my backyard trees every year.

Now both the State of Texas and the USDA are running around issuing emergency and revised emergency orders. I believe the State could handle it properly if given the chance. But the Feds won't let them. Given all the Federal restrictions on spraying psyllids ( our only real protection), I figured this would be the result.

Now we have a Dr. Robert Mangan at the USDA Subtropical Research Center in Weslaco, Tx. issuing a statement that "their biggest concern is of homeowners mail ordering citrus trees". That is just them using us as scapegoat. They did absolute nothing to let us spray using real and effective measures on the psyllids. Everything on the lists of the recommended sprays was off limits to us.

Also there was nothing in their much touted "plan" to knock down psyllids on the untold thousands if not millions of feral trifoliates which populate parts of the state.

The whole thing was phoney baloney from the start. We did not bring in the psyllids by UPS or FEDEX. See my second post.

Also the biggest influx here was with Hurricane Ike in 08. They died off with no outbreak. Since then several storms crossed the Yucatan (HLB infested) and then hit near the Rio Grande Valley. Who are they kidding? Their bosses in D.C.?

This is horrible news.
After all this time, they haven't found a cure?

Several-thousands Citrus Trees in Fl were burned to the ground.
Nurseries cannot ship citrus outside of their state.
This has been going on 5+ yrs.

I feel terrible for citrus growers who depend on shipping trees out of state, as their main income.

Wonder if any agency is going to do something to 'fix' the problem or let it sit like they have been in Fl? Toni

There is no cure. If you are able to get citrus trees now is a good time. That goes for rootstock too.

Citrus trees for dooryard fruit are (were?) bigtime in Texas.
The last time I was on a citrus tour in the Rio Grande Valley, we visited a nursery that sold 100,000 citrus trees a year to big box stores.

Mr. Texas reported a grower near where he lives grew 400,000 trees. And a "smaller grower" told me he has capacity for 28,000.

Lots of people will be out of work due to this.

Once someone tastes fully ripened fruit from the tree they can't be satisfied with the stuff in the market. I worry about how long it will take for HLB to get here (300 mi)?

I feel your pain, tantanman. We've found the psyllid, but not HLB, yet, in California. Dr. Kahn, the curator of the UCR Citrus Variety Collection was curious about the CRFG chapters in San Diego county and she was wanting to know if we share budwood or do grafting with citrus. I assured her we do not, and are extremely conscientious in our activities with citrus. It really is terrifying and hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions are going toward serious research right now at many different university-based research centers in how to control the psyllid or eradicate HLB. It has been financially devastating for the state of Florida. I'm including an article that was shared over on the Citrus Growers Forum today by one of the forum moderators. Hopefully folks will have a better understanding why you just should not buy any citrus from abroad, even seeds. Whether you're in a quarantine state or not. It is really terrifying for agriculture in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, where large percentages of agriculture are due to citrus.

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: Study: Citrus Greening Cost State $3.6 Billion, 6,600 Jobs

do anybody know if Texas is still quarantine from buying citrus from other states

do anybody know if Texas is still quarantine from buying citrus from other states

Those restrictions aren't going to change unless the commercial citrus industry in the valley goes belly up. So not anytime soon we hope.

I can not believe it we don't have spray for some thing like that.

so if i cant order from other states do anybody know a good nursery in texas that i can go online to buy i live in a small town and i cant afford to drive to houston or dallas. when i went to cali for vac omg all you see is citrus nursery i was so jealous of people who live there they are so lucky

We have sprays to kill/control the Asian Citrus Psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citrii. Without the ACP you do not get HLB; but once the plant gets the HLB, there is no cure... at least for now. The HLB disease is a virus, sorta like AIDS in humans; and it is only transmitted by the ACP; so to get HLB you need the virus AND the ACP.

It's actually a bacterial disease.

Hopefully TX will have a better response than FL. We have no response it seems. Around me there's hundreds upon hundreds of acres of abandoned groves infested with all varieties of citrus diseases, including and especially HLB. I have wrote letters to the state agriculture Commissioner as well as my locally elected representatives explaining that these abandoned groves are cesspools of disease and as such constitute a public nuisance. They must be razed if we are serious about fighting this disease. Whether the state or landowner pays for it is irrelevant in this emergency situation.

I didn't receive so much as a form letter reply. Not even a "thanks for your input" form letter. Not from one damn person.

That Adam Putnam would much rather try to weasel in to national politics than do his friggin job here.

I stand corrected... of course it is a bacterium, not a virus... the rest is correct

Louisiana is the only source our local nursery have here in south Ga. It probably want be long before it shows up in Louisiana if it is in Texas.

I am amazed as big of threat as this problem is that there is not a national Ag Department ad campaign to educate the public on moving citrus material.

I wonder if my 9 month old Kumquat got this? It had a little bit of mottled yellow/green leaves over the past summer and recently it just lost all of its leaves. We have not had too many freezes and I have not bee over fertilizing the plant. I live in Austin, Tx.

hoosierquilt,

Actually there has been one documented case of citrus greening in California. See the link below. It was found down in Los Angeles county and thought to be a result of infected wood that was imported illegally from China and grafted onto an existing tree in California.

-Brett

Here is a link that might be useful: HLB in California

Yes, I am quite aware of that incident, Brett. In fact, I posted this to our Citrus forum when it was discovered. Please look at my post date in this thread - 1/28/12 (not 1/28/13). This is an old thread that was resurrected. The incident in Los Angeles county was discovered in March of 2012, 2 months after I made the above post :-) I am a CRFG member, and we are very acutely aware of the threat of HLB to our state. I do citrus presentation for my local gardening centers here in San Diego county on behalf of the CRFG N. San Diego chapter, and I talk to the attendees extensively about the ACP and HLB, and what home citrus growers can do, to prevent the spread. So far, we have not seen any further evidence of HLB, and everyone hopes that the CDFA was able to act swiftly enough to contain the spread.

Patty S.

Geez, sorry, I didn't mean to offend!

-Brett

No offense taken, Brett :-) Just pointing out that my post in this thread was old, and not recent. And see my post alerting the forum to this discovery.

Patty S.

Here is a link that might be useful: GW Citrus Forum: HLB Discovered

I remember reading about the Texas incident, I live in the Rio Grande Valley (Our house is recessed into a grapefruit orchard no less) and the tree that was infected was only about 25 miles away in San Juan. Although I do know that they literally removed and destroyed the infected tree.

I'm surprised to read the post from someone in Florida about the diseased crops. Surely the USDA would be actively investigating if it was a serious infestation.