http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_N_citrus12.493cf06.html

Inland citrus heritage facing threat

10:00 PM PST on Friday, December 11, 2009
By JAN SEARS
The Press-Enterprise

A citrus quarantine that has been extended throughout the San Bernardino Valley and into northern Riverside County has some people worried about the longevity of the region's citrus heritage.

The quarantine, which restricts the movement of citrus fruit, leaves, trees and some ornamental plants, was extended after an Asian citrus psyllid was found in Pomona last month.

The insect can spread huanglongbing, known as citrus greening disease. The insect that was found was not infected and California so far is free of the fatal disease.

"But it's coming and there's not much we can do about it," said Bob Knight, founder of the Inland Orange Conservancy in Redlands and owner of more than 1,000 acres of Crafton citrus groves.

The Inland area's citrus production has been in decline for years, but many of its cities, including Redlands, Riverside, Corona and Highland, pride themselves on their citrus heritage.

Riverside has carefully preserved its Parent Washington Navel Orange Tree, more than 100 years old and tucked behind a fence at Magnolia and Arlington avenues. It is one of three trees used as budding stock to form the basis of California's navel orange industry.


David Bauman / The Press-Enterprise
Lucrecia Estrada, a worker with Pacheco Farms Services, picks oranges
for the Inland Orange Conservancy in Riverside's greenbelt. The San
Bernardino Valley and parts of Riverside have been included in a
quarantine area for the Asian citrus psyllid.

Highland's eastern hillsides once were green with citrus. The city's seal features citrus fruit and leaves, as does Corona's Web page.

But Redlands owns 15 citrus groves for a total of 204 acres. It sells the fruit and uses the proceeds to maintain the trees, said Todd Housley, who is in charge of the city groves.

Knight's project, the Inland Orange Conservancy, has created a subscription program called Eat2keep to generate a market for small citrus growers so they can afford to keep their groves. Subscribers pay $75 per season -- there are three per year -- and get 10 pounds of fruit per week.

Through a separate project, the conservancy provides citrus to local school districts, including Riverside Unified School District

Knight believes the quarantine will have little immediate effect on Inland growers.



"For the IOC, this is local fruit going to local growers," he said Wednesday. As he spoke, a team of two workers were picking oranges from a Riverside grove near Dufferin and Monroe avenues for consumption by students in the Riverside district.

Quarantine rules allow fruit to be shipped for sale if it has been picked and packed commercially, said Griff Thomas, deputy agricultural commissioner/sealer for San Bernardino County. That is why the quarantine boundary dips into northern Riverside County -- to incorporate packing houses in Highgrove, he said. Fruit picked in the San Bernardino Valley could be shipped to a packing house without leaving the restricted zone, Thomas said.

Larry Burgess, director of A.K. Smiley Public Library in Redlands, owns five acres that have been planted in citrus since about 1887. He and his wife Charlene have entered an agreement with the Redlands Conservancy that guarantees the land will remain open space, though not necessarily planted in citrus.

He has been keeping up with news of the Asian citrus psyllid threat and recently attended a meeting of growers and scientists.

"There is an incredible sense of hopelessness and despair," he said. "I'm not sure people are ready for the shock that this is going to be."

Housley said he doesn't disagree with that assessment.

"There has never been a case where the bug has been found that we haven't seen the disease," he said.

But he believes that when the disease does arrive, probably within five years, the destruction won't be 100 percent.

"We will lose some trees. It will be maybe 20 percent. So maybe you plant avocado or something else," Housley said.

But Burgess and Knight fear for the future of Redlands navel oranges, which have been certified as the best eating navels in the world, Burgess said.

"I'm looking out the window at this year's crop," Burgess said, "and I'm thinking, is this the last of the navels that I'm going to be tasting from our grove, let alone the Redlands area?"

Reach Jan Sears at 951-368-9477 or jsears@PE.com

Citrus Threat

The Asian citrus psyllid threatens to infect Inland citrus with greening disease, which causes deformed fruit and kills trees. The San Bernardino Valley and parts of northern Riverside County are in a quarantine zone.

Rules: Fruit can't be shipped outside the quarantine zone unless commercially packed. Backyard growers who sell their fruit at stands must wash it, remove leaves and stems and bag it.

Information: www.californiacitrusthreat.org or 800-491-1899.