Thesis (M.S.)--California Polytechnic State University, 2009. / Mode of access: Internet. Title from PDF title page, viewed on March 30, 2009. Major professor: David Headrick. "Presented to the Electrical Engineering Department Faculty of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo." "In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Agriculture, with specialization in Crop Science." "February 2009." Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-187). Will also be available on microfiche.

6 pp. / Low Desert Citrus Varieties; Irrigating Citrus Trees / Diagnosing Home Citrus Problems includes information on all the commonly encountered dooryard citrus problems encountered in Arizona. Problems/disorders are grouped into three catagories: problems with fruit, problems with leaves, and problems with stems, branches and entire tree. Symptoms, causes and control measures are given for each disorder.

Bioassay with Dimethoate, Carzol, Danitol, Baythroid and Success were conducted on citrus thrips collected from the Yuma Mesa to determine if insecticide resistance to these insecticides occurred. Low to moderate levels of resistance were detected for Dimethoate, Carzol and Danitol, and one population exhibited a high level of resistance to Baythroid. No resistance was evident for Success. Susceptibility to Success was much higher for the Yuma populations relative to populations previously reported in California.

Foliar-applied insecticides and the soil-applied insecticide, Admire, were evaluated for their ability to control citrus mealybug on lemons while having a minimal impact on parasitoids. All of the foliar-applied insecticide exhibited activity towards citrus mealybug. The standard insecticide, Lorsban, performed very well, but since this product is especially harmful to parasitoids it is not considered to have a good fit in IPM programs where parasitoid conservation is emphasized. The currently labeled alternative, Applaud, was an effective treatment and should be considered for citrus mealybug control to avoid destruction of parasitoids. Several experimental insecticides showed promise: NNI-850, NNI-750C and NNI-010. However, NNI-0101 at the lower rate of 0.24 lbs-ai/ac appeared to be weak. The addition of narrow range crop oil, NR-415 at 1.0 gal/ac, appeared to be beneficial for initial mealybug knock-down, especially for the slower acting insecticides such as Applaud. Soil injection of Admire at 16 and 32 oz/ac appeared to have very good activity, but due to variability in the mealybug population, more data should be collected to confirm this finding.

Carzol and Success with and without the addition of the feeding stimulants molasses and bee-collected pollen were evaluated for their control of citrus thrips on lemons on the Yuma Mesa. Although normal use rate of Carzol and Success were efficacious toward citrus thrips, the addition of either molasses or pollen to these insecticides as a means of increasing efficacy at low rates was not encouraging. At no point did the feeding stimulants appear to increase the efficacy of the same rate of Carzol when used alone, and it appeared that the additives may have actually decreased the efficacy of Success.

Five foliar insecticide treatments (Esteem, two rates of Provado, two rates of Applaud, Prev-am, and Danitol + Lorsban) were evaluated for their control of woolly whitefly infestations in grapefruit. All of these products demonstrated efficacy in mitigating woolly whitefly populations. Danitol + Lorsban was the best knock-down treatment evaluated, but for sustained control, Esteem appeared to be most effective. Applaud demonstrated good activity, but the rate we tested may be a little low; the 1.0 lb/ac rate should be evaluated. Provado at 19 oz/ac was a good treatment, while the 10 oz/ac rate appears to be sub-par. Prev-am is a oil based contact material and demonstrated good initial activity. Soil injections of 16 and 32 oz/ac of Admire were very effective against WWF, and there were no detectable differences between the two rates. Previous experiments with soil injections of Admire in citrus suggested that as much as six weeks needs to pass before the trees have enough time to adequately take up the Admire from the soil. However, these data suggest that smaller trees, about 10 ft tall, may require as little as two weeks to pick up the material.

We proposed creating a user-friendly web site that would provide independent, research-based, integrated pest management information to Arizona’s citrus growers and PCAs. This citrus IPM website, located at http://cals.arizona.edu/crops/citrus/ was created and integrated within an existing web site, the Arizona Crop Information Site (ACIS) http://cals.arizona.edu/crops. The Citrus IPM web site was launched on April 15, 2004.

Eight foliar insecticide treatment regimes (single applications of Esteem, Danitol + Lorsban, Applaud, Provado and Prev-am, and two applications of Applaud, Provado, and Prev-Am) were evaluated for management of woolly whitefly infestations in grapefruit. All of these products demonstrated efficacy in mitigating woolly whitefly populations. Danitol + Lorsban appeared to be the best knock-down treatment evaluated, but Provado and Prev-Am also demonstrated good activity. For sustained control, all of the treatments were effective; however, Prev-Am required an additional application to achieve equivalent control. Soil injections of 16 and 32 fl-oz/ac of Admire were very effective against WWF, and there were no detectable differences between the two rates. The Admire appeared to require about 27 days after injection to demonstrate consistent activity.