I was just chatting with my colleague in our citrus program (Prof. Tim Hurner), about an interesting observation. While Florida's citrus has been amazingly challenged recently, with hurricanes, canker, greening, and maybe stem-pitting tristeza, there does appear to be a bright side.

We've observed that there were almost no citrus leaf miners this year. A quick search of our campus arboretum shows that it's difficult to find any mines at all, on the most recent 3 flushes of leaves! Apparently the biological controls that the State has been releasing are at last successfully doing their thing.

Also, we had almost no brown citrus aphids all summer and well into the fall. It was late October before we saw significant populations, and of course, the trees were starting to shut down by then, so the population never really exploded. Again, we assume they were under heavy enough biological control that their population never had opportunity to expand.

That is great to hear. Florida citrus certainly deserves a little good news. - Millet

That is good news. It will be even better if and when they get to SC! Is that a possibility, and, if so, is there any way to acelerate the process?

Ned

They were all at my place, that's why. Leaf miners really gave my Eureka and Tahiti lime fits until I began regular oil spraying. They're just now starting to look normal again.

.....Alan.