final report of the 2022 season

ByErik Wenninger Potato Psyllid/Zebra Chip Monitoring Program

This is the final report of the 2022 potato psyllid / Lso monitoring season.

The two psyllids captured last week tested negative for Lso, the bacterium associated with zebra chip disease (ZC).

It was an interesting year with very low psyllid captures overall, but relatively high incidence of Lso. About 22% of all psyllids tested positive for Lso compared to around 1% in most recent years. It is too soon to tell what this low psyllid / high Lso season means for ZC in tubers at harvest. Our studies in Russet Burbank showed that ZC can develop during storage if infection occurs as late as two weeks before vine kill. Please consider this in your late-season IPM programs. Risk could be mitigated by processing tubers from fields at higher risk sooner rather than later.

Thanks again to all of our cooperators!