A University of Florida research team has secured a $5 million grant from the USDA to improve control and mitigation of laurel wilt disease and its vector, the redbay ambrosia beetle, which threatens the expansion of avocado production in the state.
The research team also will test new varieties for cold and disease resistance in the hope of expanding avocado production beyond Miami-Dade County, according to the university.
“Laurel wilt is the most devastating disease to avocado trees in the world,” Jeffrey Rollins, principal investigator and a professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, said in a news report from the university. “Trees infested with this pathogen die within four to eight weeks.”
The pathogen for laurel wilt disease is transmitted by four to five ambrosia beetle species and root grafts of adjacent avocado trees.
Laurel wilt has severely impacted the avocado industry in South Florida, said Jonathan Crane, a co-principal investigator and a tropical fruit crop specialist at UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center. Crane estimates production has been reduced by 50% because of the disease. Rollins said laurel wilt has destroyed more than 350,000 trees in Florida.
“Growers are interested in increasing commercial acreage in Central Florida, thanks to a variety of conditions, one being warmer climates shifting to the north. Currently, avocadoes can be found growing as far north as Polk County,” Crane told the university.
Laurel wilt was first discovered in Florida in 2012 and was initially spread by the redbay ambrosia beetle, according to the university.
“The pathogen has now spread to 10 ambrosia beetle species, five of which we know can transmit the disease,” Crane said. “That completely complicates everything. There is more at stake because the problem stretches beyond Florida into other avocado-producing states, posing significant risks.”
The university said the research team hopes to put a stop to the spread of the disease.
“The danger doesn’t stop at Florida’s borders,” Rollins told the university. “Laurel wilt is a threat, with its spread already reaching Texas and Kentucky and [it] potentially could devastate California.”
