Citrus pest turns up near Oakdale

An Asian citrus psyllid has been detected just east of town, officials said Tuesday, prompting a quarantine on fruit movement within about a 5-mile radius.

The announcement came one day after the state reaffirmed a similar quarantine around Turlock, which had started in October and extends from Keyes to northern Merced County.

Neither zone has commercial groves that could be devastated by the pest, but residents need to take care with orange, lemon, grapefruit and other citrus trees in their yards. They must clean dirt, stems and leaves from the fruit before transporting it outside the boundaries – or better yet, don’t move it at all.

The exact boundaries for the new quarantine have not been set by the California Department of Food and Agriculture. It also plans pesticide spraying within 400 meters of the find, after meeting with affected property owners.

The insect was trapped at a home near the Oakdale Rodeo Grounds, said Milton O’Haire, agricultural commissioner for Stanislaus County.

It can carry an incurable disease called huanglongbing, also known as citrus greening. Infected trees produce bitter, misshapen fruit and eventually die.

“(The quarantine) is really important, not only for the small citrus industry we have here, but also to protect our residential citrus trees,” O’Haire said.

He said his staff estimated that Turlock alone has about 5,000 citrus trees, and “tens of thousands” likely are at homes in other parts of the county. This does not include the 526 acres of commercial citrus in the county’s crop report for 2014.

Citrus is a major part of agriculture from Madera to Kern counties, as well as in Southern California. The state’s growers had about $3.47 billion in gross income last year, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Growers in Florida, another major citrus state, have suffered about $1.3 billion in psyllid damage in recent years.

“Growers there are in peril,” said Alyssa Houtby, director of public affairs at California Citrus Mutual, an industry group based in Tulare County. “It’s a scary sight, and one we hope not to ever see in California.”

The state has psyllid quarantines in all or part of 21 counties. This step is in addition to the traps set routinely to watch for this and other pests.

This story was originally published December 29, 2015 at 11:51 AM with the headline "Citrus pest turns up near Oakdale."