Diagnóstico fitossanitário participativo: ferramenta para o manejo de pragas da citricultura do Recôncavo Baiano

Abstract

The importance of citriculture goes beyond the generation of foreign exchange into the Brazilian economy. The State of Bahia occupies a prominent position in the production of citrus fruits, is the fourth national producer and the first of the North and Northeast regions. Due to the intense occurrence of pests and diseases in crops, the productivity of Brazilian citriculture is constantly threatened. It is assumed that the lack of a defined public policy for citriculture, associated to the lack of adequate technical contingent to assist and support the management strategies of orchards, have resulted in a constant difficulty in dealing with phytosanitary occurrences. The present work was carried out with the objective of promoting a participatory phytosanitary diagnosis with citrus growers of the Recôncavo Baiano territory, to outline the socioeconomic profile of the citrus grower and to characterize the phytosanitary of the orchards. The structured interviews were applied to citrus growers from nine municipalities, Sapeaçu, Muritiba, Cruz das Almas, Governador Mangabeira, Cabaceiras do Paraguaçu, São Felipe, Castro Alves, Conceição do Almeida and Santo Antonio de Jesus, from September to December 2017. In order to identify the perception of the citrus trees in the recognition of the pests and associated symptoms, colored images were used. In a second stage, visual inspections were carried out in 10% of the orchards, an opportunity to confirm or not the occurrence of the plagues listed in the questionnaire. The size of the sample took into account the information of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) on area planted with citrus. In total, 255 diagnoses were performed. Approximately 82% of citrus farmers interviewed are family farmers who own plantations in areas of less than three hectares. It was observed that the advance of the occurrence of pests and their dispersion, together with the lack of adequate management, has led to the abandonment of the orchards or replacement of citrus by other crops. This may be associated with the lack of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (ATER), since only 15% of the citrus farmers interviewed reported receiving some kind of technical assistance. The main phytosanitary problems observed were citrus black fly, ortézia, floral rot, grease spot, false rust and citrus variegated chlorosis (CVC). No report or observation of symptoms associated with Citrus Huanglongbing. For the continuity and maintenance of the citrus production chain in the Recôncavo da Bahia, there is a need to support citrus farmers in the control of pests that are already present and preventive measures to avoid the occurrence of new pests.