Potato psyllid monitoring program underway

The University of Idaho and our crop consultant collaborators across the state are once again monitoring 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 largely 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 at least 10 weeks. We have 48 fields across the state this year, using 4 sticky traps per field at all sites.

• This week we received traps from 46 fields that we are monitoring.
• We captured a total of 3 psyllids, one from each of 3 fields.
• Captures were from the following counties: Payette, Jerome, and Twin Falls.
• Before the full monitoring program was underway, we also captured 2 psyllids from the Kimberly Research & Extension Center, one of which tested positive for Lso.
• For psyllids captured this week, we expect to have results on Lso incidence next week.

Psyllid captures this week were lower than at this time last year, and more similar to the low captures we observed early in the 2022 and 2023 seasons. It is not uncommon to see some Lso-positive psyllids early in the season and fewer as the season progresses. Given the low captures of psyllids so far, the single Lso-positive psyllid found does not necessarily represent high ZC risk for this season.

More information on management of potato psyllids and ZC can be found here:

https://www.uidaho.edu/cals/potatoes/pest-management/psyllid-management

To view the weekly data by site in the old spreadsheet format: https://tinyurl.com/potatopsyllid