U.S.: California looks to ease Chinese citrus doubts
With its future in China still in doubt, California's citrus industry is working hard to recover access to the Asian nation before its Navel orange season picks up again in October.
China took exporters by surprise this past April when it cut off citrus imports from California following detection of Phytophthora syringae or brown rot in six orange shipments.
Since, the California industry has been working to recover this major market and avoid long-term damage.
California Citrus Mutual's Paul Story said the state remains hopeful that it can alleviate Chinese doubts before next season.
"Right now there’s nothing happening or being shipped to China. We’re in the middle of trying to reassure them that there are certain things we can do here to alleviate the problem and that just takes time," the director of grower services said.
"We have to do tests to show that certain processes will eliminate brown rot. There are a couple of strains of that and we’ve got the university doing some testing on things. Hopefully we’ll be able to get it resolved."
During the ban, the United States Department of Agriculture and the Chinese inspection service (AQSIQ) have exchanged letters on brown rot interceptions and preventions measures, said Jim Cranney, president of the California Citrus Quality Council.
One proposal has been the application of potassium phosphite, found by a University of California researcher, Jim Adaskaveg, to be highly effective in controlling brown rot.
"APHIS [Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service] sent AQSIQ reports on the potassium phosphite experiments on July 19. We are now awaiting a response from AQSIQ," Cranney said.
"If approved by AQSIQ, post harvest potassium phosphite treatments would be required on all citrus shipments to China. Â Unfortunately, this adds another complication for packinghouses because there is no food additive tolerance (FAT) established for potassium phosphite in Japan."
The CCQC and USDA have been working to establish residue data to allow FAT application in Japan. This process, however, can take up to four years of review.
In the meantime, market and harvest conditions have eased the short-term blow of the ban.
"It was imposed right at the end of our Navel season and we were in our early Valencia export season. So most of the effect was for our Valencia orange or summer crop. We thought it was going to have a pretty serious effect on us but as it turns out, we’ve had some fairly decent demand and what we’ve seen is more fruit going into Hong Kong," Story said.
"Everything worked out right where we could do something else with the fruit. In a heavy Navel year that goes a little later and a heavy Valencia year, this might not had happened. This is an extremely important market for us."
Long term, however, the scenario looks much more daunting for California if the state does not achieve reentry to China.
"We were fortunate that if it’s going to happen, the timing was such that the impact has been lessened a little bit. But if it continues into the Navel season and we can’t ship to China, it’s going to have some serious consequences," Story said.
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