During the recent Florida Citrus Industry Annual Conference, Kirsten Pelz-Stelinski, director of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Mid-Florida Research and Education Center, presented evaluations of trunk-injected antimicrobials for HLB management.
She said the purpose of these antimicrobial treatments is a short-term or stop-gap approach to keep the current inventory of Florida citrus trees in the ground and as productive as possible. Her research observed the available formulations of oxytetracycline (OTC) under field conditions.
Her research confirms that, over time, OTC is delivering what the industry hoped it would. While results have been mixed in groves, the overall trend is positive. These mixed results could be attributed to the level of decline of trees in groves and impacts by hurricanes.
Pelz-Stelinski studied how the OTC treatments would affect the levels of HLB bacteria in treated trees. Results showed OTC did reduce the HLB bacteria when compared to control trees with no OTC trunk injection.
“We are seeing that trunk-injected OTC did impact the pathogen load in the tree over time,” she said. “There is a little variation throughout the season, (but the load was reduced). The real question for us was: Will this OTC treatment affect the pathogen load of the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) populations in groves?”
The results show that the acquisition of the HLB pathogen was reduced in ACP by the OTC treatments. There was a statistically significant reduction of the HLB pathogen in ACP in the OTC treatments versus the non-treated trials.
The research also showed that OTC trunk injections resulted in a yield increase after one year of the initiation of the experiment.
Share this Post
About the Author
