"This is the most significant plant disease invasion into California in modern history"

California's citrus industry accounts for $2 billion in revenue. You would think a disease that threatens the industry would get more attention, yet this is the first I have heard about it. According to Yahoo news, "state bug detectives fanned across...suburban Los Angeles neighborhood Monday, vacuuming backyard trees with bug catchers, setting traps and taking tissue samples from citrus in a frantic effort to stop the spread of a deadly disease detected there last week."

According to the article, "the USDA confirmed on Friday what state agriculture officials had feared: Both a psyllid and the 8-foot, 8-year-old grafted lemon-pummelo tree where it was found March 22 in the Hacienda Heights suburb of Los Angeles County were infected with huanglongbing. The disease is 'citrus greening' which is transmitted by 'an infected psyllid.'  A psyllid is an insect that when feeding on a citrus leaf can transmit the disease from one tree to another. 'This is the most significant plant disease invasion into California in modern history,' said Ted Batkin of the Citrus Research Board."

Are you an organic gardener? State inspectors are fanning out across LA searching for the bug, and potentially infected tree's. If you have a infected tree the state will, "spray the tree with the pesticide TEMPO, a pyrethroid-type insecticide that lasts up to 30 days." Then they will remove the tree for destruction. "The state is asking the Office of Administrative Law for emergency authority ordering mandatory treatment all of the trees in the half-mile zone in an attempt to kill the psyllids and prevent the spread of the disease. County agriculture officials are working to educate homeowners by mailing out information prior to a community-wide meeting April 9".

I remember the early 80's living in The Bay Area, helicopters would fly over at night spraying Malathion in an attempt to eradicate The Mediterranean Fruit Fly. Ironically, the man who ordered the spraying then was Governor Jerry Brown, our current governor. Of course aerial spraying would be much more difficult to pull off in today's environment. So for now state inspectors are walking door to door hanging traps and inspecting trees. "In one 15-minute span on Monday CDFA trappers using vacuum-like devices collected 25 Asian citrus psyllids from a single backyard tree in the target area."

I think this would be a great opportunity for garden centers, nurseries, and garden bloggers.  Use the power of social media to inform, and help people understand the nature of this threat. With so much happening in the world stuff like this can "end up under the fold" so to speak.  As the Yahoo article say's, "the people of Los Angeles County need to realize how important this is. It's so common to have citrus in residential backyards, and nobody wants to see widespread losses there."

Here is a post I did awhile back on the original Washington Navel Orange Tree, which still lives in the middle of a busy thoroughfare in Riverside. That tree has sure seen a lot of changes in the 130 plus years of it's existence.

Big problems in "Busy Lizzy" land

One of the most popular flowers grown in greenhouses in The Impatiens.  Known lovingly as "Busy Lizzie's", these plants make up a huge proportion of the flowers grown in greenhouses for retail sale in spring. Imagine being a grower that depends on this flower to make ends meet, and you find out that a new disease is threatening your crop. The disease, Plasmopara obducens, is also known as "Impatiens downy mildew".  In 2011 the disease was confirmed in coastal southern California, northeast Illinois, northern Indiana, the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Long Island, and upstate New York. If you’re in those regions, keep an eye out for the disease. Green Profit, a trade magazine tells us what growers will be looking for in the greenhouses.

"• Lightly chlorotic or stippled leaves. Subtle gray markings may also appear on the upper leaf surface. • Leaves may turn downward from the leaf margins. • A white, downy growth may be present on the underside of affected leaves. "

This disease is so serious that Thompson & Morgan, a larger seed company won't even be offering Impatiens this year. According to their website, "Thompson & Morgan has decided to drop all walleriana types (as this is the only strain that succumbs to the mildew) from the range. With sales in excess of £1,000,000 it would have been an all too easy for us to carry on offering our best selling bedding plant, but we want our customers to be completely satisfied."

This disease only affects the "Walleriana" type of Impatiens.  "New Guinea" impatiens are highly tolerant of the disease and should not be confused with the "Walleriana" (Busy Lizzie) types. A big issue with this disease is  it often does not manifest itself in  the greenhouse, but later in the customers garden. A lot like the Late Blight of Tomatoes that occurred in 2009.

Green Profit has this advice for anyone thinking of selling Impatiens at their garden center this year. "The phrase 'What they don’t know can’t hurt ’em' is not applicable here. In fact, it could end up hurting you. Customers who find impatiens downy mildew on their plants after purchase—whether it’s in baskets or beds—will likely assume your business is at fault. 'What, me go back to Joe’s Greenhouses? They sold me those bum impatiens.' Not what you want happening." Here is what garden centers should do for their customers according to Green Profit,

"Inform the customer of: • the disease’s existence, especially if the disease has been verified in or near your region. • the symptoms (leaf yellowing and premature leaf and flower drop) to watch for. • that although plants may be healthy when they leave the garden center, they could become infected once planted into the landscape, with the risk of susceptibility being higher in beds with a previous history of the disease. • its higher incidence of occurring in locations that are heavily shaded, densely planted and stay moist for long times. • planting measures that could lower the likelihood of the impatiens downy mildew—and diseases, in general. "

If you live in one of the affected areas check out your local garden center, and see what advice they are or will be offering this spring. Garden centers that have worked hard to build trust with their customers will be honest and forthright, explaining the issue and possible solutions. It will be interesting to see how garden centers, growers, and the individual gardener respond to this issue come spring, and summer.

Late blight, the box stores, and you.

The recent late blight problem has huge implications for the garden center business, and home gardening. The idea that one supplier can produce all the vegetable starts for all the major box stores is a bit scary. When things go wrong, as they did in this instance, it can affect millions of people. Of course the box stores have gouged and "pay at scanned" all the other players out of business. So we end up with a few, very large suppliers that can deal with the box stores. The choices of where they can get their plants are shrinking. Because of the late blight Bonnie plants has said they will not grow heirloom tomatoes nest year. You choice of vegetable varieties just shrank, if you shop at the box stores. Web sites should be used for getting information out to the customer. I checked out the web pages for the box stores, and I could not find any mention in their garden pages about the blight. Bonnie plants, where much of the infection occurred just changed a section in their web site this last week to address, "brown spots and yellowing leaves." The link takes you to a Teaxa A&M "Tomato problem solver".  No mention of their part in this mess. A huge opportunity to let the gardening public know what Bonnie did, and what it intends to do about this serious problem in the future. Why don't the box stores want to help their customers solve this problem, that was likely spread through their stores? Where are the press releases?

The New York Times article quoted a  John Mishanec, a pest management specialist at Cornell ,  who said, "agricultural pathogens can easily spread when plants are distributed regionally and sold by big-box retailers. Farms are inspected, greenhouses are inspected, he said, but garden centers aren't, and the people who work there aren't trained to spot disease." Now is he talking about box store garden center employees? If the box store garden center employees are not trained to spot disease, what are they trained to do? Makes you wonder what they would tell you when you bring that little plastic bag in with your problems inside.

I think this whole affair proves that box stores work at reducing the choices for the customer. Less choice means fewer suppliers to deal with. Few suppliers that become bigger, and bigger, and find that less choice (no heirlooms next year), means fewer problems. Of course when something does go wrong, it goes wrong in a big way. A huge potential for smaller garden centers to fill a niche. More choice, expert advice, smaller locally owned business, with numerous smaller suppliers.