2023 Potato psyllid monitoring program underway

The University of Idaho and our crop consultant collaborators across the state are once again monitoring for potato psyllids, zebra chip disease (ZC), and liberibacter (Lso), the bacterium associated with ZC. The monitoring program covers commercial potato fields throughout southern Idaho and is funded in part by the Idaho Potato Commission and generous in-kind contributions by our cooperators.

Our official monitoring season began with wide deployment of traps last week and will continue for 10 to 12 weeks. We have 55 fields across the state this year, using 4 sticky traps per field at all sites.

This week we received traps from 52 of the 55 fields that we are monitoring. We captured a total of four psyllids across three fields, all in Canyon County. In addition, a limited number of fields was monitored prior to the official start of the monitoring program. We captured one psyllid in a field in Canyon County last week and zero so far over four weeks of monitoring at the Kimberly Research & Extension Center.

It is still early, but thus far we are seeing relatively low numbers of psyllids, similar to the numbers we observed in 2022.

We expect to have results on Lso incidence next week.