YUMA - Stopping every 50 feet along the edge of a citrus grove, Alex Bellotti pulls a bright yellow insect trap from a tree and quickly scans it for a bug the size of a ballpoint pen tip.
An inspector for the Arizona Agriculture Department, he'll make dozens of stops today, collecting and replacing the glue traps before bringing them to a screening facility to be examined under a microscope.
There are thousands of such traps around Yuma County as part of an intensive effort to keep the Asian citrus psyllid (pronounced SILL-id) - and the fatal tree disease it can carry - out of the state. The invasive species has already decimated citrus groves in Florida and has footholds in neighboring Southern California and Mexico.
So far, the traps have turned up 11 Asian citrus psyllids in Yuma County and one in Nogales. None carried citrus greening disease.
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But the initial discovery of five bugs in 2009 prompted a quarantine for most of Yuma County, the state's main producer of citrus.
Citrus greening disease, spread by infected psyllids, causes the fruit to stay green and turn sour, and it eventually kills the tree. The quarantine in Yuma County will stay in place until no psyllids have been found for two years.
The disease isn't only a threat to commercial citrus, said John Caravetta, associate director of the Agriculture Department. Most psyllids found in Arizona so far have been on trees in residential areas.
"There is a very real possibility they could spread to Maricopa County and the residential citrus areas there," he said.
But Glenn Wright, a citrus specialist at the University of Arizona's Yuma Agricultural Center, said citrus greening disease will eventually get into Arizona but won't do as much damage here because of the drier climate and the state's aggressive response.
Citrus greening disease
• Also called Huanglongbing, the disease is always fatal for trees but poses no threats to humans or animals.
• It was first reported in China in the 1800s.
• It is spread by infected Asian citrus psyllids, which have been found in the U.S., and African citrus psyllids.
• Symptoms can take two to four years to appear.
• The disease causes misshapen, small fruit that don't ripen properly and are sour-tasting, a yellow shoot of leaves and leaves with irregular green blotching.
• There is no cure. Infected trees must be removed and either chopped up or burned.
• The disease has been found Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Georgia.