Any introduction of citrus budwood other than through Lynfield could be disastrous for our industry. If you have any knowledge of illegal budwood imports, please contact us immediately - you will be doing yourself and your industry a service . In recent years much effort has been devoted to mild strain cross protection research. This approach at present appears promising in controlling stem pitting symptoms in trees on tolerant rootstock varieties. It has not been effective in controlling decline of trees on sour orange rootstocks.
Brazil is the largest exporter of citrus juice concentrate in the world.
Pera trees, even when planted on CTV tolerant rootstocks, become severely affected by the field strains of the virus. It was at this point that the preimmunization of trees with mild CTV isolates was proposed as a means of cross-protection. The distribution of preimmunized budwood started two decades ago. Large scale propagation of cross-protected Pera by budding has neither altered the CTV strain severity, nor led to breakdown in protection. Over the years, this method has been extended in Brazil to other citrus types and strain interactions.