Survey for Citrus Growers

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

How often are citrus growers spraying for Asian Citrus Psyllid? That’s the question Dr. Lauren Diepenbrock wants to know. She is an assistant professor at the University of Florida and the citrus entomology extension specialist. She has created a survey that she is requesting growers to complete.

Diepenbrock… “We make these recommendations. We hope people use them. We hope they're useful. But I'd really like to get an idea of adoption of those methods. You know, where we have gaps that we need to fill in information. Sometimes the documents aren't always there in the backup, the things that you're told. So I'm hoping that by doing this, taking advantage of these weird circumstances where we find yourselves at home a lot more, that girls will have the time to actually fill this out, and provide some information. I've included, you know, are you willing to, let me contact you to maybe look at your spray records historically so I can see changes that you've made over time. It's all just to help inform where our research needs to go.”

Dr. Diepenbrock hopes the results will inform future research and extension programs.

Diepenbrock… “If you can time your management, those periods of heavy flesh. You don't have to spray as often. You can actually knock down those psyllid numbers by targeting those management actions, which not everybody is able to do that. Because that really requires scouting. It requires a lot of moving parts, but it seems to be a really worthwhile effort for the people who are able to do it.”

Access the survey here: https://ufl.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eXQr9OyWsmoFsgJ