Integrating Antibiotics Into a Broader Management Plan for HLB

This project will combine threshold-based management of ACP to reduce unnecessary insecticide sprays, which may facilitate investment in other therapeutic strategies while not compromising vector suppression. Preliminary data suggest that trunk-injected OTC should have greater positive impact on tree health and productivity than previous attempts with foliar application of antibiotics. However, it is unknown whether such treatments, with and without simultaneously application of phytohormones, can bring trees currently on the brink of death back into production. Therefore, we will simultaneously validate the effects of trunk-injected OTC on pathogen load and vector transmission and determine if the savings gained by reducing insecticide input with treatment thresholds could ‘pay for’ additional input of antibiotics.