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19 May 2020 Screen Mesh Size for Exclusion of Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Liviidae) in Citrus Production
Timothy A. Ebert, Laura Waldo, Daniel Stanton, Arnold W. Schumann
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Abstract

Huanglongbing is a citrus disease that reduces yield, crop quality, and eventually causes tree mortality. The putative causal agent, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (Rhizobiales: Rhizobiaceae), is vectored by the Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri Kuwayama. Disease management is largely through vector control, but the insect is developing pesticide resistance. A nonchemical approach to vector management is to grow citrus under screen cages either as bags over individual trees or enclosures spanning many acres. The enclosing screen reduces wind, alters temperature relative to ambient, and excludes a variety of pests that are too large to pass through the screen. Here we evaluated the potential of six screens to exclude D. citri. We conclude that screens with rectangular openings need to limit the short side to no more than 384.3 µm with a SD of 36.9 µm (40 mesh) to prevent psyllids from passing through the screen. The long side can be at least 833 µm, but the efficacy of screens exceeding this value should be tested before using in the field.

© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Timothy A. Ebert, Laura Waldo, Daniel Stanton, and Arnold W. Schumann "Screen Mesh Size for Exclusion of Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Liviidae) in Citrus Production," Journal of Economic Entomology 113(4), 2026-2030, (19 May 2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toaa095
Received: 8 January 2020; Accepted: 13 April 2020; Published: 19 May 2020
KEYWORDS
CLas
greening
HLB
Liberibacter
pest Management
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