Survival of Adult Asian Citrus Psyllid,Diaphorina citri(Hemiptera: Psyllidae), on Harvested Citrus Fruit and Leaves

Abstract

The Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri Ku wayama (Hemiptera: Psyllidae), is an important citrus pest primarily because it vectors bacteria putatively responsible for huanglongbing disease, one of the most serious diseases of citrus world wide (Halbert & Manjunath 2004). Both the psyl lid and pathogen have been introduced into Flor ida (Bove 2006). The psyllid has spread to other citrus production areas in the USA including Texas (French et al. 2001), where huanglongbing has not been observed although the psyllid is widespread. Pertinent to this report is that the psyllid has been found in California a number of times since 2008 (Halbert et al. 2010) and once in Arizona in backyard citrus trees near Yuma dur ing 2009 (Bech 2009). Permanent establishment of the psyllid has apparently occurred in Califor nia but only in the Los Angeles area, and estab lishment has not yet occurred in Arizona. Pre venting establishment of the psyllid in an area being invaded may be achieved through concerted eradication efforts in conjunction with the estab lishment of large quarantine areas to assist in preventing the spread of the psyllid with har vested fruit trucked to areas where the psyllid has not been found. In fact, adult psyllids have been found with fruit transported after harvest (Halbert et al. 2010). However, no information was available regarding psyllid survival on har vested fruit, which could be valuable in determin ing if or when fruit from an infested grove might safely be moved after harvest. Because leaves sometimes contaminate bins of fruit during har vest, information on the survival of psyllids on leaves could also be valuable in determining when harvested fruit might be moved. We there fore conducted 2 experiments on survival of adult psyllids on harvested fruit and leaves. In 1 survival experiment, psyllids were con fined to the following: detached mature leaves, detached stems with mature leaves, or detached stems without leaves from 4 citrus cultivars