USDA photo by David Bartels
A new quarantine area for sweet orange scab (SOS) was recently established in the Burbank area of California’s Los Angeles County. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA/APHIS) in cooperation with the California Department of Food and Agriculture announced the quarantine area.
The 91-square-mile quarantine was established because of an SOS detection in a plant tissue sample collected from a residential property in Los Angeles County. The expansion does not impact commercial citrus.
USDA APHIS is applying safeguarding measures on the interstate movement of regulated articles from the quarantined areas in California. This action is necessary to prevent the spread of SOS to non-infested areas of the United States.
The APHIS Sweet Orange Scab website has information on this disease, federal orders, approved packinghouse procedures, a description of current quarantined areas and information on the disease’s symptoms.
Sweet orange scab symptoms may be confused with other diseases, like citrus canker, or with environmental injuries. Symptoms may also vary by region due to differences in environmental conditions, like humidity.
Here are general SOS symptoms to look for:
Fruit: Scab-like lesions appear on young fruit. They are slightly raised and pink to light brown in color. Lesions on orange and grapefruit are sometimes flatter. As they expand, the lesions become cracked or warty and change to a yellowish-brown to dark gray color. Scabs are usually dispersed in the same pattern as water being splashed on fruit.
Leaves: Lesions begin on leaves as water-soaked spots which evolve into pustules. Typically, lesions are found on the underside of leaves near the mid-vein or border. Lesions on young tissue are usually raised, while lesions on mature tissue are usually flatter. Infected leaves can become irregularly shaped, stunted or puckered.
Source: USDA APHIS
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