South Africa: New citrus pest found in Eastern Cape

A new citrus pest has arrived in the Eastern Cape's western region and if it infiltrates our commercial orchards it will place a huge cost burden on hard-pressed citrus farmers.

Export crop farmers had been hard-hit by the Transnet strike and logjam at ports, and it was anticipated that the citrus industry in particular would lose some R700-million as a result, Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat- Peterson told Parliament last week.

The public could play a key role in restricting the new pest's movements while ways were being found to control and eradicate it, Citrus Research International (CRI) programme manager Sean Moore said.

Based at the CSIR complex in Summerstrand, CRI is spearheading research on the pest, called "woolly white fly". It is thought to have originated in Jamaica in the late 1800s and from there it migrated, despite efforts to eradicate it, into the US. Since then it has appeared in Europe, Asia and Africa.

It was first identified in South Africa, on the Western Cape coast, by Stellenbosch entomologist Professor Jan Giliomee. In April, its presence in the country was officially placed on the books of the International Plant Protection Convention, which seeks to protect crops and indigenous plants from invasive pests.

Moore said it was not clear how it had got here. South Africa imports very little citrus and official routes are carefully policed. The pest does attach to other plants, however, and it is possible it came in on an ornamental pot plant, for instance.