Greening advances in Brazil and increases production costs for citriculture

The incidence of greening (Huanglongbing, HLB) in many Brazilian regions reached record levels in 2022, informed Cepea (Center for Advanced Studies in Applied Economics).

The advance of this bacterial disease has increased expenses in citrus growing and limited the productivity of orchards in Brazil, the world's largest producer of oranges.

″Currently, depending on the intensity of the spraying, the expenses with the management of the disease have risen a lot and can reach up to 30% of the disbursements in the 2023/24 season,″ Cepea pointed out.

According to Fundecitrus (Citriculture Defense Fund), the average incidence rate of greening reached a record 24.42% of contaminated plants.

This represented an increase of more than six percentage points compared to 2018, when HLB infested 18% of the orchards, and eight percentage points compared to 2017 (16% infestation).

Fundecitrus has recommended that producers postpone new plantings and/or renovations in regions with the critical incidence of HLB, that is, above 25% incidence in orchards.

This is because young trees are even more susceptible to the disease. The exceptions are properties isolated from other orchards (within a radius of at least five kilometers away) and those with neighbors who carry out strict management.

The Cepea study recommended ″assessing the region and its susceptibility, maintaining the lowest level of disease incidence in the orchard through intensive vector control and the eradication of contaminated plants.″

″The incidence remains higher in orchards over ten years old, in smaller properties, and border plots,″ Cepea pointed out.

Even so, they are concerned about a large number of plants under five years old with greening and the growth in incidence also on larger properties (above 200,000 plants, where the rate of trees with symptoms increased from 14.06% in 2021 to 19 .39% in 2022).

The percentage of plants with symptoms of HLB (greening) in the Brazilian citrus belt continues to increase, despite the sector's efforts to control the vector (psyllid) and the disease.

The trend is for an increase in the number of plants with HLB in 2023 because symptomatic plants were not eliminated, Cepea said.

An insufficient amount of spraying was also conducted, and some were even done inappropriately to control the psyllid.

In addition, the study points out that there was repetitive use of pyrethroids without adequate rotation of other modes of action (which caused vector resistance to this chemical group in some places).

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)