6:00am | While officials finish arrangements to remove and dispose of the infected tree and conduct treatment of citrus trees within 800 meters of the find site, additional information about the program will be provided at an informational open house scheduled for Thursday, April 5, at the Industry Hills Expo Center, The Avalon Room, 16200 Temple Avenue, City of Industry, from 5:30pm to 7:00pm.
 
April 3, 6:00am | After the only bug which transmits the disease was discovered in California in 2008, the worst fears of agriculturalists have come true with the recent discovery of bacterial disease huanglongbing, or citrus greening, in the Los Angeles County suburb of Hacienda Heights.

The disease first appeared in Florida in 2005 and has since lost the state billions in revenues and over 6,000 lost jobs, having destroyed 200,000 acres of citrus-farmed land. When the bug — the Asian citrus psyllid — was discovered in L.A. County, the County Agricultural Commissioner ordered bug trappers to scour the area looking for anywhere the bug could be hosted. This past Friday, the disease was confirmed to have infected a 8-foot lemon-pummelo tree in an undisclosed backyard. The search was massive, surveying some 435 properties with 57 samples taken from trees that potentially exhibited the symptoms.

It is the disease itself which kills the tree, causing the farmer to have to uplift the dying plant and replace it — an expensive endeavor. The citrus psyllid feeds off the branches and leaves of citrus trees, contracting the disease and spreading it as it continues to feed. Symptoms include a yellowing of new shoots, misshapen fruit, and leaf blotching. It can take years for an infected tree to show symptoms and, more dire, all eventually die.
 
California’s citrus industry is massive, generating some $2 billion annually and supplying the nation with 80% of its fresh orange supply. With its 35 million citrus trees, fears that it could spread to major farming regions such as Ker and Tulare have heightened, particularly in the city of Visalia where the bug was recently found, albeit disease-free, in December.

Fights to combat the disease are strewn in various directions, with the most current effort being the direct spraying of trees. In a more intriguing effort hailing from UC Riverside, researchers have released a Pakistani wasp, a predator of the psyllid, throughout the L.A. basin in the hopes that it will curb psyllid populating. 

CORRECTION: This article originally stated “planet” instead of “plant.”
CORRECTION: Visalia was originally called a “region” and was changed to “city.”