Governor Ron DeSantis has amended an executive order for immediate action to limit the impact on the state's agricultural areas resulting from the pasture mealybug.
The invasive pasture mealybug was first discovered in Florida grass fields in May and has quickly spread across several parts of the state. It's native to Australia and Southeast Asia but was first detected in the U.S. in Texas and then Louisiana last year.
In early June the insect was confirmed in 15 Florida counties and by Sept. 10 had spread to 10 more among them Okeechobee, Hardee, Highlands, Glades, Hendry, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier.
DeSantis signed the updated executive order Sept. 15 prompted by the potential for the invasive bug to to significantly impact the state's agricultural industry including significant damage to food crops, animal pasture grass and even residential lawns.
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The pasture mealybug is oval shaped and has a fluffy, wool-like appearance with long, straight rods of iridescent opaque wax projecting from the body. Young mealybug nymphs and adult female mealybugs are a creamy white color, then turn pink after mating. Males turn pink ahead of pupation and remain pink in their winged adult form.
They can most commonly be found feeding on the underside of grass blades. Adult females then move to the thatch or soil to reproduce.
Pasture mealybug is unlikely to be found on non-grass host plants as they feed on the sap of pasture grasses, like hay, or sugarcane, rice, and corn.
Pasture mealybug can cause severe dieback of pastures and grasses, which poses a major risk to Florida’s pasture grass and sugarcane industries. The most damage has been found on limpograss and sugarcane, but bahiagrass, bermudagrass, crabgrass and other roadside grasses in Florida are also affected. There is a potential for turfgrass to be affected, but pasture mealybug has not yet been found infesting turf in Florida.
Isaac Esquivel, an assistant professor and extension specialist for UF/IFAS, said so far, the greatest impacts in Florida have been on limpograss pastures, where cattle feed, and sugarcane, but it can affect any other grass species.
"The leaves will turn red in certain grass species, or will start to dry, so it kind of dries out looking like drought stress, and it can happen rather quickly," Esquivel said. "There's not natural predators for them, so they kind of just take off."
You can start seeing symptoms anywhere between seven and 21 days.
He says it's going to have an especially big impact on the state's sugar cane.
"Particularly because the length of that crop ... sugar cane takes a couple years to develop before you can harvest that," he said.
Florida's many ports are potential entry ways for nonnative species, like this one, he said.
Researchers are quickly testing which insecticides work best to fight the pest, with some poisons requiring state and federal approval for this specific use.
The Florida Department of Agriculture said that the use of contaminated hay-cutting or mowing equipment and sprigging (a planting method that uses individual pieces of grass stems) new hay fields with infested material may quickly spread mealybugs to new areas. To reduce spread, producers should be cautious when moving equipment, hay or livestock between fields.
If growers suspect they have a mealybug infestation, they can send samples to the Florida Department of Agriculture's Division of Plant Industry.
The Department of Agriculture's informational page on the pasture mealybug is available here.
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