It seems that scientists have found the perfect biological control for laurel wilt, an avocado disease that has proven fatal to crops of the tree that produces the delicious and highly nutritious berry.
According to Fruitnet.com, the University of Florida has been greatly concerned with this avocado disease, considering the fact that the state runs an avocado industry of about $54 million that has been greatly threatened by laurel wilt, which can easily destroy crops of the tree; but new experiments have led the university's research teams to the conclusion that the whole thing can be treated.
Laurel wilt is known as the avocado disease due to the fact that it's probably the tree that the disease takes a highest commercial toll on. The symptoms include stems that lose their strength, as well as the wood becoming darker.
The avocado disease comes from redbay ambrosia beetles, which make holes in healthy avocado trees, ultimately spreading laurel wilt around different plants and ultimately costing millions of dollars worth of crops.
Growers of avocado will usually use pesticide to fight the invasive beetle, but there have been attempts before to find a way to get rid of the pest that doesn't include strong chemicals.
The study that researched the avocado disease, called "Entomopathogenic fungi as biological control agents for the vector of the laurel wilt disease, the redbay ambrosia beetle, Xyleborus glabratus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)" and published on Biological Control (according to Science Daily) states that there are certain fungi that can naturally kill the redbay ambrosia beetle.
Researchers exposed the beetles to three different fungi, all of which were commercially available at ease. When adding the fungi to trees already infected with the beetle, they died; on the other hand, when they sprayed them on healthy trees, 75 percent of them died.
However, it seems that female beetles still managed to bear into the threes and spread the avocado disease, regardless of the fungal treatment.
In any case, this shows an interesting promise for the ultimate elimination of this condition in avocado crops.
