A natural repellent removed from the guava leaf may be the solution to control citrus greening, considered one of the worst diseases of citriculture in Brazil and in the world. The product is being developed in a partnership between the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) and the Fund for Citrus Protection (Fundecitrus), and it should start to be tested in the groves soon.

The disease is caused by a bacterium that is transmitted by an insect vector, the psyllid. Because it is too small and difficult to identify, it easily enters the groves. If the plant is infected, it has to be eliminated. And because of that, the group of researchers began to investigate natural pesticides capable of repelling the psyllid and attract them to another area, without harming the environment and human health.

They discovered a molecule in the guava leaf that has this attribute. “Our research looked for natural volatile compounds, which are the odors. Our strategy is to use these compounds to repel the insect from the grove to another area, where we can apply pesticides in a more rational way, and also to avoid contaminating the environment,” explained Fundecitrus researcher Mr. Rodrigo Facchini Magnani.

The research in laboratory has already been completed. The next step includes studying the effectiveness of this repellent in the field. “To check if it really works as a repellent and then incorporate it into citrus greening management,” said Mr. Magnani.

The latest Fundecitrus data showed that 16.73% of the groves in the state of São Paulo were affected by the disease last year, with around 32 million infected trees.

A pair of eyeglasses with lenses coated with a special filter is the newest invention to detect the symptoms of huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening, during visual inspection in citrus groves. The innovation, which is already available in the market, allows the user to see the main characteristic of the disease, known as leaf mottling or yellowing, because it intensifies the contrast between green and yellow, which is typical of the pest.

The glasses were developed by Embrapa Instrumentation and the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCAR), and makes it easier for inspectors to work, reducing the error rate in the identification of the disease, and bring visual protection to users. The creators believe that in addition to Brazil, the technology could be used by inspectors in other citrus-producing countries, such as the United States, China, Mexico, Spain and India.

Using the traditional method, citrus greening can be identified through visual inspection by trained professionals, but with high failure rates. It is believed that half of the symptomatic plants are kept in the field because of errors in the inspection, which allows the disease to proliferate among healthy trees.

The technology, already patented, is available at Fhocus Optical Solutions, a company licensed to manufacture and trade the eyeglasses, based in São Carlos (state of São Paulo), and with a branch in São Paulo, and it can be acquired by prior registration at the company’s website or phone number.

According to Fhocus’ marketing director, Mr. Clédio Romero Rodriguez, the unit cost of the eyeglasses is estimated at around R$200.00, but can be reduced depending on the purchase amount. Mr. Rodrigues recalls that the technology is being developed according to the strict requirements of the American National Standards Institute (Ansi), and he believes that the product should be consolidated as an innovative working tool to help reduce the contamination of orange groves.

Source: Página Rural

The pathway to sustainable citrus growing goes through improvements in the tools to manage the orchard in order to maintain its health, in synch with new, latest innovation in production trends, with efficient use of natural resources and which are less impacting on the environment. Aware of such demand, Fundecitrus has looked in all its lines of research for new ways of helping citrus growers to maintain their orchards producing with cost efficiency and not adversely affecting the environment.

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL AND PHEROMONE

Fundecitrus approach concerning that strategy started in 1996, when a big surge of citrus fruit borer – a moth whose caterpillar penetrates the fruit and may cause significant crop losses – led the research to look for alternatives that could inhibit the advance of that pest. Researchers studied the insect’s habits, described its life cycle and were able to isolate its sex pheromone. The effort resulted in a trap, available to citrus growers since 2001, which is a low-cost, high-efficiency tool to monitor the fruit borer. A recent study by the “Luiz de Queiroz” Agricultural College (Esalq/USP) reported that the use of such trap prevented losses from US$132.7 million to 1.32 billion from November 2001 to 2013.

Also in 1996, another pest – the citrus leafminer – started causing serious problems to citrus growing due to its influence on the severity of citrus canker. Keeping up with its search for low-cost and low environmental impact tools, Fundecitrus oriented its efforts towards a fast and efficient solution. Studies were conducted regarding the feasibility of importing Ageniaspis citricola wasp, a leafminer parasitoid, from the US. By mid 1998 the first lot of this parasitoid, arrived in Brazil. After the quarantine procedure, the little wasps were reared in large scale and released in 200 orchards from 60 municipalities of Sao Paulo State. Tamarixia radiata, a natural enemy of the Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphorina citri), vector of the bacteria associated with HLB (huanglongbing/greening), is the newest sustainable tool used by Fundecitrus to fight against the world’s main citrus disease. The little wasp uses the psyllid nymphs to reproduce, by laying its eggs below them, so that later, it will become food to the larvae when they eventually hatch. In May 2015, Fundecitrus started its biofactory in Araraquara-SP. The T.radiata production of this lab is around 100.000 wasps per month, which are released at locations such as backyard or abandoned orchards, rural and urban areas. The goal is to reduce the psyllid population at their breeding grounds in a sustainable manner to avoid their migration to orange orchards.

A research developed by Professor Jose Postali Parra’s team, from Esalq/ USP, with Fundecitrus support, showed that in areas where Tamarixia radiata was released, there was an average reduction of 70% in the psyllid population, reaching peaks higher than 90%.

NATURAL INSECTICIDES

Insecticides with natural compounds are another sustainable-control alternative. In this respect, Fundecitrus is developing a bioinsecticide and a botanical insecticide to control the psyllid. The bioinsecticide is based on an entomopathogenic fungus (which causes disease to insects). After four years of research developed in partnership with Esalq/USP and Koppert, the product is being field tested, with initial results showing 80% efficiency in controlling the psyllid. The botanical insecticide, developed in association with Embrapa Acre, is an essential oil extracted from a plant known as spiked pepper. This plant produces a compound named dillapiol and has shown, in lab tests, to have good potential to control the psyllid.
With the arrival of HLB in Sao Paulo, in 2004, citrus growers saw their costs soar with sprayings. Also, at that time, Fundecitrus started its research on the technology application against the psyllid, aiming to reduce up to 70% of insecticide and water for this pest control. Additionally, the institution has maintained for several years a team dedicated to training growers and visit citrus farms to teach them how to correctly adjust spraying equipment to avoid waste.

SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

The trend is that the citrus industry will increasingly use technological innovations in the future, with focus on sustainability, and wiser, cheaper, and more natural strategies, such as pheromones, to help both: to monitor the insects and to attract and kill them. Another strategy is the study of repellence by odors or physical pest control. As a long-term strategy, researchers are also searching for plants – either citrus or other crops which may be inter-planted with orange trees – that are disease-resistant or pest-repellent.
“No matter the pathway to be taken, all Fundecitrus researches are earmarked for improving citrus growing with increasingly more natural and intelligent measures”, affirms the institution’s manager, Juliano Ayres.

Click here  to access the entire issue.

]]> http://sustainablejuice.com/2017/02/citrus-growing-in-times-of-sustainability/feed/ 0 http://sustainablejuice.com/2017/02/efficient-cost-effective-spraying/ http://sustainablejuice.com/2017/02/efficient-cost-effective-spraying/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2017 17:54:17 +0000 http://sustainablejuice.com/?p=473 A research by Fundecitrus shows that it is possible to reduce the spray volume by 70%, and costs by up to 40% while maintaining quality of control deseases.

During the 2012-2013 and 2013- 2014 seasons, the researchers assessed several volumes of spray and copper rates to control citrus canker on trees of sweet orange “Valencia” planted in 2006, with an average canopy volume of 49 m³. Spray volumes were defined based on the tree canopy size, aiming to reduce waste of resources and production costs.

Volumes of 150, 100, 70, and 40 mL of spray mixture/m³ of canopy were tested during two seasons. The last two volumes were also assessed with adjustment of the copper rate. The study assessed the incidence of leaves and fruits with symptoms, premature fruit drop, yield, copper deposits on the leaves, spray coverage and the cost-benefit ratio.

In the first year, the copper-treated plants – regardless of the volume and copper adjustment – showed at the most 5% of occurrence of diseased leaves. Whereas non-sprayed trees showed a peak of 30% of leaves with citrus canker.

In the second year, results were similar to those in the first year, except for the 40 mL/m³ volume with no rate adjustment, which reached 10% of symptomatic leaves, between November and January, when tree flushing coincides with the occurrence of rains.

According to researchers, the lower protection of that treatment was caused by the reduction of product deposits on the tree. In this case, when the rate was adjusted, control was reestablished, showing that the 40 mL volume may be efficient, since the metallic copper rate is adjusted.

“The results show that spray volumes may be safely used by citrus growers. Lower spray volumes and copper rates may affect such control and are still being studied.”, affirms researcher Franklin Behlau.

With this method, citrus growers would save US$ 1.5 in one application, on a 100-hectare area, for example.

Equipment adjustments are required to use reduced volumes of spray, among which the use of spray nozzles that produce fine droplets (150 µm). The sprayer speed must not exceed 5.5 km/h, with a minimum coverage of 30% on the leaves inside the canopy.

According to Fundecitrus researcher Marcelo da Silva Scapin: “The adequacy of application volumes allows savings and reduction of the environmental impact, in addition to increasing the operating efficiency of the equipment”, he affirms.

As an example, if the reduction proposed by the research were applied to the Sao Paulo State citrus belt, which is currently estimated at 462 thousand hectares, if carrying out six applications per crop year, there would be savings of 6.2 billion liters of water, enough to supply the whole city of Sao Paulo for 5 days, or the equivalent to 56 million people for one day. The cost reduction for the whole citrus belt would reach US$ 40 million a year in expenses with equipment, product and labor.

To see the entire publication, please click here.

The new data collection period is necessary to check the expansion, renewal and retraction of the area during the year 2016. Fundecitrus agents will visit 2,625 orange fields (blocks of plants) – corresponding to 5% of the total in the citrus park – to count all the trees. The sites were determined by draw based on stratification by region, variety and age. This phase is the first step of the 2017/18 orange forecast production and it is expected to be completed in March.

Next, a stripping of 2,200 trees will be carried out, whose fruits will be separated by bloom, counted and weighted. The stripping data combined with the tree inventory make up the production numbers, which will be released on May 10^th.

Fundecitrus implemented the Orange Production Forecast (PES, in Portuguese) in October 2014, in response to a demand from the citrus sector, which sought to have accurate information on the orange production and the citrus park, gathered in a transparent way, based on field measurements, counting and weighting of the fruits. The research was carried out in partnership with Markestrat, the School of Economics, Business and Accounting of the University of São Paulo, campus Ribeirão Preto and the Department of Statistics of the School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences of the São Paulo State University, campus Jaboticabal.

Watch the video explaining more about the orange production forecast:

The November issue of the Globo Rural magazine, one of the main Brazilian publication on agribusiness has an article written by the president of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA, Mr. Mauricio Antônio Lopes. He is the head of the country’s leading agricultural research institution and one of the most respected in the world, and he wrote an analysis on the Brazilian agricultural model and the need to produce food in an environmentally sustainable way. See the full article below.

By Mauricio Lopes, EMBRAPA’s president:

Brazil is the only country in the tropical belt of the globe that was able to conquer the position of agricultural power. Management technologies have transformed poor soils into fertile land. The tropicalization of the crops, with different cycles, allowed to take advantage of lands in all climatic conditions. The sustainable management and practices we develop constitute an arsenal of environmental defense. With their entrepreneurial dynamism, the producers knew how to combine this knowledge and take advantage of market opportunities.

However, the tropical condition has its burdens. Such efficiency in food production is constantly put to the test by all sorts of stresses. With the same strength, which makes the plants sprout, the abundance of sun and humidity welcome and multiply diseases and pests. The new requirements of the Brazilian Forest Code and climate change impose limitations on the expansion of the production area and cost increase.

That’s why the term “sustainable intensification” gains more and more visibility. Producing more intensively and resiliently has become a must for Brazil and it demands technological sophistication that increases the efficient use of environmental resources – especially water, soil and biodiversity – and ensures adequate ecosystem services, such as waste recycling, water replenishment, air improvement, among others.

Brazil draws the attention of the world to the potential of intensifying its agriculture. A large extension of our agricultural areas can be used safely 365 days a year, producing in the same space, grains, animal protein, fiber, bioenergy and, in the near future, renewable biomass chemicals. EMBRAPA, supported by a network of public and private partners, invests in intensification based on low-carbon, “resource-saving” technologies and gains in land productivity, in line with the new Forest Code and the new consumption pattern defined by a society increasingly engaged in environmental causes.

The ABC Plan – “Low-Carbon Emissions Agriculture” is a bold public policy based on the results of Brazilian agricultural research and aligned with the global response to climate change. It aims to expand the recovery of degraded pastures, integrated crop-livestock-forestry (ICLF), no-tillage system (NTS), biological nitrogen fixation (BNF), planted forests and treatment of animal waste.

Extensive research conducted at national level pointed to an area of ICLF systems adoption in Brazil that reaches the expressive mark of 11.5 million hectares, representing an important part of the Brazilian response to mitigation and adaptation to the world’s climate change. This result is part of the tough strategy of tackling climate change by the Brazilian agriculture, which advances in the consolidation of the adaptive capacity of its agricultural systems, backed by the knowledge management and technological innovation, by the strong emphasis on technology transfer through public-private partnerships, and sustained in the vision and entrepreneurship of our farmers, who perceive and respond in time of fast changes in which we live on.

The article is also available in Portuguese at EMBRAPA’s website
https://www.embrapa.br/busca-de-noticias/-/noticia/18530376/artigo—intensificacao-sustentavel-e-realidade-no-agro-brasileiro

According to Fundecitrus researcher Mr. Marcelo Scapin, one of the people responsible for the system, the information allows the citrus grower to manage the control of diseases and pests without wasting the pesticides, using only the volume needed. “The citrus growers will be able to adjust the volume and pesticide rates, and adjust the equipment in the right way”, he says. The accurate control reflects in a smaller amount of product waste, avoiding soil contamination, and making the operation even more sustainable.

According to Fundecitrus, with the app it’s possible to reduce the water volume up to 70% to control the psyllid, up to 60% for postbloom fruit drop, 30% for citrus leprosis, and between 40 and 50% for citrus black spot. “The SPIF is a way to take the knowledge generated by research to the citrus growers in a more practical and accessible way”, says Mr. Scapin.

To do the math, the SPIF was based on the results of research on Application Technology that have been carried out in Fundecitrus for over ten years for citrus leprosis, citrus black spots, citrus canker, postbloom fruit drop (PFD) and psyllids. The purpose of the system is to provide these results in a practical way to be applied in the field and to assist in the correct sizing of the spraying.

The app is available for free in the desktop version (offline) and can be also accessed at the Fundecitrus website (Click here). A mobile version will be launched soon, available for Android, IOS and Windows.

To know more about the new technology check the link, in Portuguese

http://www.fundecitrus.com.br/comunicacao/noticias/integra/fundecitrus-lanca-aplicativo-para-ajudar-a-calcular-pulverizacoes/478

The 22^nd World Climate Conference (COP 22), held in November in Morocco, ended with the signing of the Marrakech Action Proclamation, a statement on what the State Parties consider a priority to try to contain global warming in the coming years. “The climate is warming at an alarming and unprecedented rate and we have a duty to respond urgently to the problem”, says the document published by the Ministry of Environment, which makes an assessment of the Brazilian participation in the event.

According to the document, the Brazilian government has evaluated COP22 as a “starting point”, whose focus is the definition of the so-called “rulebook” for the implementation of the obligations assumed under the Agreement. Brazil participated in the COP with a wide and diversified delegation, including representatives from different scopes of Government, academia, private entities and non-governmental organizations. There were 271 Brazilian delegates in Marrakech, of which 87 connected to the Government and 184 from civil society.

The report also outlines the position adopted by the Brazilian representatives at the Conference, such as the view that the Paris Agreement is irreversible and that the work needs to be speeded up to implement it. It also points out to the need, discussed at COP 22, for developed countries to increase their level of funding by defining a “road map” that shows how the $ 100 billion annual target will be achieved by 2020.

The service has been offered for free to citrus growers since 2004, when citrus greening appeared in the groves of São Paulo. It meets the demand of producers who have questions related to the presence or not of the disease in the groves. In addition to HLB, a diagnosis is also made for CVC (citrus variegated chlorosis). In this case, the number of plants assessed was 7.4 thousand, from 2008 to 2016.

“The demand for analyzis today is lower due to the greater knowledge of the symptoms of HLB on the part of the citrus growers and the low index of CVC in the citrus park. But even so, the demand is high because the diagnosis gives certainty about the infection or not of the plant”, says Fundecitrus researcher Mr. Nelson Arno Wulff, responsible for the laboratory.

In 2016, a new device was acquired for the laboratory that provides economy and agility in the diagnostic process and it allows to reduce the analysis time from 30 minutes to 2 and a half minutes. In addition to optimizing the analyzis, the equipment brought savings of 27% in material expenses.

“The laboratory is always looking to deliver faster and faster results, with less reagent use and less waste, following the trend of sustainability-driven diagnostics”, says Wulff.

More information on sample shipment is available at: http://www.fundecitrus.com.br/pesquisa/laboratorio

The sustainability of the citrus chain was the central theme at the 13^th International Citrus Congress, one of the main citrus event in the world. From September 18^th to 23^rd, the event, which took place in Foz do Iguaçu, in the state of Paraná, south region of Brazil, gathered over 1 thousand participants from 35 countries to debate the main challenges of the sector.

In over 18 plenary sessions, the event, organized by the Agronomic Institute of Paraná (IAPAR), in partnership with the Agronomic Institute of Campinas, discussed what’s new in cultivation science, pest control, fertilization and plant nutrition, and also technological innovation for the fruit processing industry. One of the key themes was the discussion around the scientific way to introduce citrus greening genetically resistant plants, one of the main citrus’ disease. “The goal of the event is to generate knowledge to expand the economic, environmental and social sustainability of the citrus agribusiness”, highlighted Mr. Eduardo Fermino Carlos, IAPAR researcher and member of the Congress’ organization committee.

Now, for the coordinator of the Citrus Health department of the Agricultural Defense Agency of Paraná (Adapar), the public agency link to the state government of Paraná, Mr. José Grossi, the discussions during the event will meet the demand for products with less agrochemicals during the process of fruit production. “The trend is to reduce the use of agrochemicals in the groves, complying with the environmental and consumer requirements”, he underlined. “It’s up to science, research and agricultural extension to help the grower seek efficiency under the financial, environmental and human health aspect as well”, he added.