Holy Guacamole! Tiny Bug Threatens U.S. Avocado Supply

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/03/09/avocados-guacamole-invasive-beetle-drought?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-03-09

Farmers already dealing with drought and high water prices are now battling a mysterious beetle that’s destroying their trees.



(Photo: Getty Images)

March 09, 2015 By Padma Nagappan

Padma Nagappan is a multimedia journalist who writes about the environment, renewable energy, sustainability, agriculture, and biotechnology.

California’s epic drought isn’t the only thing putting a chip in your guacamole dip supply. Now a tiny but deadly beetle looms as another big threat in a state that grows 95 percent of the United States’ avocados.

Farmers already had been abandoning their groves in San Diego County—the nation’s avocado capital—as water rates soared. For those still in business, a mysterious new pest that recently began attacking a range of trees seems to have a particular affinity for avocados.

“We’ve found that the beetle is drawn to 138 tree species, and it attacks 13 agricultural crops, but it can only reproduce on avocado trees,” said Akif Eskalen, a plant pathologist with the University of California, Riverside. “Why, we don’t know.”

That has the California Avocado Commission worried. The trade group has given $800,000 to Eskalen and other researchers to figure out how to stop the polyphagous shot hole borer.

FULL story at link.