Mite Control on Texas Citrus, 1978

Six acaricide treatments and a control were arranged in a completely randomized design with each treatment replicated on 6 single trees. The 4-yr-old grapefruit trees, on a 24 ft x 24 ft spacing on sandy loam soil, were sprayed by hand gun with a John Bean Model 1010-MTBT sprayer at 225 psi, using ca. 10 gal/tree. Treatments were applied on May 28 and mite counts made at 30-day intervals posttreafment. Twelve fruit/tree were selected at random and rust mite were counted on the top, median, and bottom of each fruit using a 10X handlens with a l-cm2 grid. Texas citrus mite were counted by collecting 15 to 20 leaves/tree at random, brushing the mites from leaves onto counting plates with a Henderson-McBurnie mite brushing machine, and counting at 40X under a binocular microscope. Acaraben and efhion + 1% citrus spray oil were the standard acari cides.