The pest is called the Asian citrus psyllid, and it is confirmed to be in Imperial, San Diego, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, which has sparked quarantines in those areas, according to a press release distributed by the Dept. of Food and Agriculture.

For the full article from the Highland Park-Mount Washington Patch, click here.

For more information about the app, what it does and how to get it, visit UC Berkeley’s website or OakMapper.org.

The Southeast Asia native insect has spread throughout parts of the world, including Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Oceania. The closest confirmed detections to the United States was in the Dutch Antilles and in Aruba in 2009.

A landscape contractor in the Laguna Beach area first reported the red palm weevil to authorities, prompting local, state and federal officials to confirm its existence, conduct a door-to-door survey and set 250 traps to determine if an actual “infestation” exists. Others are encouraged to report suspect infestations by calling the CDFA Pest Hotline at 1-800-491-1899.

Although most all palm trees are non-native to California, the palm tree industry generates approximately $70 million in sales annually and date palm growers, most notably found in the Coachella Valley, harvest $30 million worth each year.

Here’s how devastating the pest can be, detailed by the CDFA:

Female red palm weevils bore into a palm tree to form a hole into which they lay eggs. Each female may lay an average of 250 eggs, which take about three days to hatch. Larvae emerge and tunnel toward the interior of the tree, inhibiting the tree’s ability to transport water and nutrients upward to the crown. After about two months of feeding, larvae pupate inside the tree for an average of three weeks before the reddish-brown adults emerge. Adults live for two to three months, during which time they feed on palms, mate multiple times and lay eggs.

Adult weevils are considered strong fliers, venturing more than a half-mile in search of host trees. With repeated flights over three to five days, weevils are reportedly capable of traveling nearly four-and-a-half miles from their hatch site. They are attracted to dying or damaged palms, but can also attack undamaged host trees. Symptoms of the weevil and the larval entry holes are often difficult to detect because the entry sites can be covered with offshoots and tree fibers. Careful inspection of infested palms may show holes in the crown or trunk, possibly along with oozing brown liquid and chewed fibers. In heavily infested trees, fallen pupal cases and dead adult weevils may be found around the base of the tree.

Posted: 10/4/2010

University of California, Berkeley scientists are enlisting the public’s help in tracking a disease that is killing off oak trees.

For the past two years, scientists have been counting on residents to collect tree samples and send them to the university’s Forest Pathology and Mycology Laboratory. They have used the information to create a map plotting the spread of sudden oak death.

The mysterious pathogen was first discovered in Mill Valley in 1995 and has since killed tens of thousands of trees in northern California and southern Oregon. Scientists estimate the disease, transmitted through host plants and water, could kill as many as 90 percent of California’s live oaks and black oaks within 25 years.

The mapping project, funded by the U.S. Forest Service, is the first community-based effort to combat sudden oak death. It had about 240 participants collecting more than 1,000 samples last year, said Matteo Garbelotto, a UC Berkeley forest pathologist and the nation’s foremost expert on sudden oak death.

“This is part of the solution,” Garbelotto told the San Francisco Chronicle. “If we educate and involve individual property owners, we can make a really big difference.”

Once an infested area is identified, homeowners can remove host trees, which can increase oak survival rate nearly tenfold. Residents also are urged not to do large-scale projects that could disturb the soil and trees during the rainy season because it could help spread the disease.

“Each community that learns they have sudden oak death in their neighborhoods should say, ‘Hey I better do something,’ because by the time you notice the trees are dying, it is already too late,” Garbelotto said.

Click here for a full article on Berkeley’s efforts to track Sudden Oak Death.

Emerald ash borer probably arrived in the United States on solid wood packing material carried in cargo ships or airplanes originating in its native Asia. Emerald Ash Borer is also established in twelve other states and parts of Canada. While Emeral Ash Borer is not yet a problem in California, it may be in the future.