PR - Defining The Economic “Tipping Point” In The Management Of Citrus Greening: Follow The Standard Protocol Or Shift To An Enhanced Foliar Nutritional Program (p159-165)

Florida citrus growers are confronting arguably the most serious threat to their industry - Huanglongbin, or citrus greening. Presently, their choices are to follow the “standard” protocol which involves removing infected trees, or switching to an enhanced nutritional program, which they hope will maintain the productive life of infected trees. While there is a dramatic visual improvement of tree appearance, production implications of an enhanced nutritional program are largely unknown. The enhanced nutritional program considered in this paper follows from a Florida grower who was the first to pursue this management option and increases production costs by approximately $1,000 per hectares. This paper estimates that annual losses of trees under the standard protocol are more than 5%, maintaining trees with an enhanced nutritional program would be higher, provided a nutritional program could maintain fruit production at pre-greening conditions for at least 10 years.

Keywords: Huanglongbin, citrus, costs, threshold, NPV