Disease threatens citrus industry
One of Belize’s major income earners, the citrus industry, faces a new threat. It has to do with the citrus greening disease that has recently been detected in northern, western and southern Belize. The only silver lining is that so far the disease had not been detected in citrus groves but in private backyards. Today News Five spoke with the Director of Research at the Citrus Growers’ Association, Stephen Williams, who explained what citrus growers need to know.
Stephen Williams, Dir., Research Unit, C.G.A.
“Because it was detected in the region, we decided that we should do some surveys for the disease in Belize. And it is only recently that we have actually discovered that the disease is present in the country. The samples that we’ve picked up are from backyards, mainly citrus trees, backyards in Toledo and the Orange Walk District and in the Cayo and Stann Creek. So although we’ve picked up in all the districts we’re not necessarily saying it has spread throughout the country cause we’ve picked it up in backyards.”
“The approaches to dealing with it is firstly, to make sure you have your citrus plant totally disease-free. So we need to produce those under a screening condition to keep the insect that spreads the disease from attacking the plants. And the other activity we need to do to is for growers to regularly walk through the groves and we’ll be looking for symptoms of the disease and when disease symptoms are found then the trees would have to be removed. One of the key things is a mottling on the leaf. There’s a variation in the colouring but the challenge is the symptoms look very similar to micro-nutrient deficiency. So if people are not putting their levels of fertilizer into the trees that they should be then they’ll get very similar symptoms.”
“What we suggest is, rather than citrus growers going out there and trying to look for symptoms, they first should contact the Citrus Growers’ Association and get some information on what the symptoms look like. Some approach is to control the vector, which is an insect. What we have done, we’ve done some work with the Caribbean Agriculture and Research Institute—we started that about two years—looking for biological control of insects. These insects are almost like friendly insects because they attack the insect that is spreading the disease.”
Williams says if the spread of the disease is not controlled, it can be devastating to Belize’s citrus industry. Within the next two weeks, experts from Florida will visit Belize to develop a strategy to fight the problem. The C.G.A. is currently holding surveys and workshops mainly in the southern districts to sensitize citrus growers of what to look for and how to respond if they detect the disease. Workshops will start tomorrow at the Big Falls Centre and Trio Village Pentecostal Church. Two more will take place in Georgetown and Maya Centre Villages on Friday. More workshops are also being planned for next week in the affected areas.
