Citrus Exports and Gall Wasps Protection

I bought citrus food while shopping yesterday and I'm just waiting for rain to be predicted and then I'll sprinkle it around the outer edges of the foliage of my citrus trees and water it in.

I obtained a fertilizer with a wetting agent included in the product as it can get hot and dry, here in the northern Goulburn Valley where I live. That is ideal conditions to grow citrus as lone as they have irrigation.

Home growers of fruit have a responsibility to care for them as insect pests allowed to flourish in home gardens might infect a commercial crop and devastate a commercial industry.

Citrus gall wasp is one example. A single wasp can lay up to 100 eggs on a tree. The gall wasp infests in new growth, typically at the start of spring, in all citrus varieties. Five years ago, it was something we hadn't heard of, now on the increase. It is in the river land of South Australia and as yet it has not reached  Tasmania. Like fruit fly, unless it is controlled it will spread throughout the country. 

Remove branches with citrus gall wasp eggs, and then wrap infected branches in plastic bags and leave them the sun to kill the eggs.

The commercial crops are looking good and this year it doesn't
look as if the fruit will be dug in due to imports, at last, we are exporting again.

A fabulous change for our orange growers is happening at the moment with a  huge surge in Australian orange exports to China, which is welcome relief for citrus growers.