‘CUPS’ Protects Citrus From Greening, Storms

A system designed to protect citrus trees from the deadly greening disease withstood the ravaging winds of Hurricane Irma last year, University of Florida scientists say. With reinforcements installed after the storm, they’ll likely withstand even more dangerous storms. Using Citrus Under Protective Screening, or “CUPS,” growers can keep the Asian citrus psyllid away from their trees, said Arnold Schumann, a professor of soil and water sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. If an infected psyllid – a bug the size of a pin -- bites citrus leaves, it infects trees with a bacterium that sickens them with greening, also known as Huanglongbing, or HLB.During the four years of the CUPS experiment, UF/IFAS researchers have seen no psyllids or greening on the citrus grown in the screened-in environment, said Schumann, a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center (CREC) in Lake Alfred, Florida.When they built the indoor citrus growing system, UF/IFAS researchers – knowing they faced the potential of tropical storm-force winds -- had anchors installed on the poles that keep the screens in place, Schumann said. Those worked fairly well during Irma, but there was room for improvement, he said.