Fundecitrus Phytosanitary Alert helps with regional greening management

The Phytosanitary Alert, a free tool developed by Fundecitrus, helps citrus growers in the regional management of greening, the most serious disease in citrus farming worldwide, by monitoring the psyllid population, the insect that transmits the disease.

Knowing the moments when the psyllid population increases allows management to be more assertive, optimizing applications. And regional control, carried out on several neighboring properties at the same time, reduces the insect's migration between orchards in the same region.

More than 31 thousand traps monitoring 285 thousand hectares

Created in 2009 and modernized in 2013, it is the largest psyllid monitoring system in the world. It measures the insect's population variation through georeferenced yellow sticky traps (an attractive color to the insect) distributed throughout the citrus belt and the presence of sprouts (preferred locations for feeding and reproduction).

Citrus growers analyze these traps and enter the data into the system, which compiles the information and creates fortnightly reports. Currently, the tool monitors 285 thousand hectares of citrus in 172 municipalities throughout the state of São Paulo and Triângulo Mineiro.

“When the system registers a high population of the insect, alerts are sent to citrus growers so that management measures can be adopted in a joint and coordinated manner in the same region, thus increasing control efficiency”, explains Fundecitrus agronomist Ivaldo Sala, responsible by the tool.

On the Phytosanitary Alert page on the Fundecitrus website, maps show the situation of the insect population in each region through colors that indicate whether the population is low, medium, high or extreme – signaling the current 'status' of each region in relation to the history of the region itself and the capture history of the entire area covered by the system. The work to develop the maps was a partnership with Embrapa and the data is updated every two weeks.

The Phytosanitary Alert has the support of Citrus Grower Friendly Companies (Albaugh, Bayer, Cocamar, FMC, Gowan, Ihara, Koppert, Sumitomo, Syngenta and UPL).

To participate, the citrus grower must contact Fundecitrus by calling 0800-110-2155 or directly with one of the institution's agronomists.

Technologies are allies in controlling greening

Fundecitrus also provides other technologies that help citrus growers control greening and other pests and diseases.

The Phytosanitary Management System, combined with the Phytosanitary Alert, generates personalized reports, graphs and maps of the property, helping to organize and manage data; the Fundecitrus Integrated Spraying System (SPIF) provides information for calculating the volume of spray solution; the External Greening Control System (SICEG), a system for managing and monitoring external greening management actions; among other available tools.