Whitefly

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By CHRISTOPHER WOODARD

Staff Reporter

A tenacious bug about the size of a kernel of rice has launched what farmers fear may be the start of a major offensive that threatens Ventura County’s $143 million-a-year strawberry crop.

The greenhouse whitefly, which normally attacks celery, tomatoes, beans and other row crops, appears to have developed a taste for strawberry plants. The pest first infested 150 acres in September and has since expanded its reach to an estimated 600 acres in the Oxnard plain, the state’s No. 2 strawberry growing region.

“I’m right in the middle of a war zone here,” said Cecil Martinez, a longtime farmer who has 89 acres of strawberries under harvest between Oxnard and Point Mugu. “We’re working on things to keep them in check, but my personal opinion is, we’re going to have to live with these puppies.”

Martinez says he won’t know until the end of the picking season in July whether the pests have reduced his yield, but neighboring farmers who just finished picking an earlier crop saw substantial declines in production.

“The guys around me saw their summer strawberries come in about half of what they normally do,” said Martinez. “(The pest) just takes down the plant. It also leaves a sticky honeydew on the berries that starts turning them black from mold. When that happens, you can’t market it.”

The California Strawberry Commission is particularly concerned because strawberry farmers have few pesticides in their arsenals to deal specifically with whiteflies, and the harsher chemicals tend to kill beneficial pests.

Meanwhile, farmers in the Watsonville and Salinas areas are starting to see whiteflies as well, sparking fears that the bug may be gaining a foothold in the No. 1 strawberry-producing region in California.

“We just don’t know if the pests are making a real assault or not,” said Frank Westerlund, director of research for the commission. “It’s just too early to tell.”

The state’s strawberry crop, which takes in about 24,600 acres, is worth an estimated $550 million to $600 million annually.

Westerlund said the fly problem may be the result of warmer El Ni & #324;o conditions and a mild winter that allowed a larger than normal number of adult flies to survive the winter. Others speculate that the bugs may have infested the original 150 acres in Oxnard because those strawberries were grown off season, when most growers don’t have any plants on the ground for the bugs to infest.

Normally, farmers plant strawberries in the fall for harvest between early January and mid-July, but more farmers are planting in the summer for harvest in the fall in order to take advantage of the demand for berries in the off season.

The theory goes that the bugs may have come from neighboring lima bean or celery crops that weren’t adequately treated for the pests. The summer strawberries may have given them safe haven while they waited for the winter berries to be planted in the fall.

Strawberry farmers have had some success killing off the nymphs using a chemical called Admire, which is applied in the irrigation system and soaked up by the roots. But that chemical is expensive and can only be used before the berries bloom.

Willing to try anything to combat the problem, Martinez has ringed his field with a yellow sheet of plastic coated in petroleum jelly, which he hopes will act as king-sized fly paper.

“They seem to be attracted to yellow, so we’ve decorated the ranch like the old oak tree,” he said.