A package of $20 million in research funding approved by Congress for the benefit of the U.S. citrus industry will largely be used to help find a cure for Huanglongbing — a devastating vector-carried disease now endemic in Florida — and to help develop biological controls to keep the Asian citrus psyllid, which can spread the disease, from ever reaching endemic proportions in California.

The funding, which was part of the 2014 Omnibus Spending Bill, will go to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be used for those purposes, said Alyssa Houtby, director of public affairs for California Citrus Mutual, a trade association whose 2,200 members represent 70 percent of California's $2 billion citrus industry. "A multi-agency task force … has been assembled within the USDA to work with the industry to determine where those funds could be used for research, both short and long term, to find a solution for HLB."

CCM hosted a press conference in Visalia, CA, Jan. 23 with Congressman David Valadao and Osama El-Lissey, deputy administrator of USDA's Animal Plant Health & Inspection Service to explain how the money would be used. In addition, "we had a few industry folks there who presented their recommendations" on how the funds should be used," Houtby said.

In Florida, where the psyllid is endemic, "their main concern is finding a cure for HLB," Houtby said. In California, where a number of psyllid finds in commercial citrus-growing areas have triggered quarantines but treatment of those finds has so far been effective in preventing breeding populations from becoming established, the main concerns are better early detection of HLB and better control methods for the psyllid.

"There is a significant effort under way" to develop a biological control program, Houtby said. The state of California defaulted on a promise to provide funding to help with that program. The industry hopes the new federal funding will take up some of that slack and "go to support our state-wide efforts for biological control."

There have been some recent new finds of the psyllid in the San Joaquin Valley in recent weeks, but they were within already existing quarantine areas and have not affected existing quarantine boundaries, she said.

It was uncertain whether the existing quarantines would ever be lifted, as "we continue to find new psyllids every few months," Houtby said. But the quarantine restrictions do not apply to packed fruit. "As long as it has been commercially cleaned and packed, it can leave the quarantine area," so it has not been "too much of an issue for the majority of growers."