Nursery Papers – Huanglongbing (HLB)

Background – Australia is increasing its biosecurity for an incurable plant disease that has crippled citrus-producing regions around the world and is posing an ever-growing threat to our local citrus industry. Huanglongbing (Chinese for yellow shoot disease), or HLB is a lethal, rapidly spreading, bacterial disease of citrus. Currently, it is not found in Australia, however HLB is endemic in many of our northern neighbours.

The infection of host trees results in severely reduced fruit production, higher tree maintenance costs and potential tree death, all of which have serious negative economic impacts. There is currently no cure for HLB, the only way to stop the disease requires the removal and destruction of all infected trees to prevent further spread of the disease, replace them with new plantings, in combination with the management of insect vectors.

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