Metodology

The research was carried out in Cuitlahuac, located in the central zone of the state of Veracruz, Mexico, at the geographical coordinates 18° 48’ 42” north latitude and 96° 43’ 22” west longitude, with an altitude of 378 m (^{INEGI, 2012}). It has 13 651 inhabitants; has warm subhumid climate with summer rains and warm humid with abundant summer rains. The average annual temperature ranges between 24 and 26 °C (^{SEDESOL, 2013}). Cuitlahuac is located in an important citrus area, main reason for which it was selected to carry out this study.

In 2013, questionnaires were applied to two groups of key social actors. The first one was for people who had a lemongrass plant on their property or on the sidewalk, while the second was applied to managers of the packers who were in operation, located both in the town and on the outskirts. The questions that were asked to the interviewees were oriented to know the following aspects: sex, age and schooling of the interviewees; knowledge about the disease and the vector, as well as information on lemongrass plants and knowledge about the federal government’s disease control campaign.

The analysis of the obtained information was performed with R v3.0.2 (^{R Core Team, 2015}) by means of calculation of descriptive statistics and a test of Z was made to know if there were differences in the answers to a group of questions that were applied both to the inhabitants of the locality and to people in charge of the packers.

Discussions

A total of 79 questionnaires were applied to the owners of lemongrass plants; of the interviewees, 71% were women and 29% were men. Most people (39%) were between 50 and 60 years old, 38% had primary education and the rest with higher school grades (Figure 1). When asked if they planted the lemon plants, 57% said no. According to the information obtained, most of the plants are older than 10 years and most of the people ignore the origin of the plants, they infer that the seeds have spread on their own. 95% of the interviewees use the limonaria for ornamental purposes, either by the aroma or the flowers.

Figure 1 Sociodemographic attributes of interviewees. Percentage of men, age and average schooling. 

In terms of management, prunings and irrigation are applied in most cases (79%) and only 6% of those interviewed performed some type of pest control. Regarding the knowledge level about HLB, only 9% said they knew the disease; regarding if they knew that lemongrass houses the HLB, 95% answered no, as well as a high percentage (92%) were unaware that lemongrass hosts Diaphorina citri. A high percentage of respondents (90%) did not know or have not seen any government message or campaign about HLB.

On the other hand, 78% of people agree to cut their lemon plant knowing that is a HLB carrier, this decision is taken mainly for the sake of lemon crops (80%). The majority (76%) would like to substitute their lemongrass plant for different types of plants either ornamental, fruit or shade and 71% of respondents are interested in receiving information on HLB in leaflets, information meetings and television.

On the other hand, 22 questionnaires were applied to the people responsible for the lemon balers located in the locality or in the periphery. In this case most of the interviewees were men (64%), young people mostly (around 30 years) and all with higher education to primary education (Figure 1). The position of the interviewees in the packinghouse is generally that of manager or administrator (77%), in very few cases their position was being in charge of quality and safety department (14%).

When asked if they knew Huanglongbing, 77% of the respondents answered yes, they also know or have seen messages or campaigns from the federal government about HLB (73%) and about the transmission of HLB, 50% refer to know how it is transmitted either by the vector or by grafting. Regarding to identify the lemongrass plants, only one interviewee claim to do not know it, whereas the remaining 21 responded that they knew it and, only one person knew its scientific name.

When asked if they were aware that the lemongrass hosts HLB, 59% said no, 77% also replied that they did not know that lemongrass is a host for Diaphorina citri. When asked if they thought it would be convenient to eliminate the lemon plants in the urban area, 67% responded positively. They were also asked if some phytosanitary measures were taken in the packinghouses for the control and management of D. citri. and HLB; based on the responses it was found that 45% of the balers carry out prevention actions such as checking the plant material and cleaning of all work areas.

Finally, when asked if they would like to receive more information about HLB, 95% of those interviewed said yes, mainly on issues related to combat and prevention of the disease, whether through leaflets, triptychs, briefings and TV announcements.

According to the statistical analysis, differences were found between some answers to questions that were asked to the two groups of respondents (Table 1), so it can be affirmed that although the campaign strives to raise public awareness, there is still a lack of diffusion work to do mainly in urban areas, such as the case of Cuitlahuac, where one of the main economic activities is lemon production (^{SIAP, 2014}), and where plantations close to the urban area may be at a high risk, if the lemongrass plants in the city play a role of vector reservoirs. Both groups agree that if they are asked they would remove the lemongrass plants and replace them with another type of ornamental plant (Table 1).

Table 1 Proportion of response of the two groups of respondents and significance of the Z test. 

*= significancia estadística al 0.01.

As noted in the above table, packers managers have a significantly higher level of knowledge on issues related to the HLB campaign and its vector compared to people who own host plants in the urban area. It is important to mention that the vast majority in both groups were unaware that Murraya paniculata could be a source of inoculum and host of insect populations. The positive aspect is that in both groups agree on receiving more information on the subject.

Conclusions

In general, both groups of interviewees have information on issues related to the control campaign of Huanglongbing and Diaphorina citri, but the packers are the ones who are more informed because, due to the nature of their work related to citrus, information about pests and diseases is greater because they can receive campaign staff or training. It was identified that in aspects related to Murraya paniculata, both packers and inhabitants of the urban zone, showed low levels of knowledge, ignoring that this plant can be reservoir of disease, pathogen and vector. It is important to mention that most of the lemongrass plants located in the community are used as ornamental and very few of them were planted, so there is the willingness of the interviewees to eliminate and replace them. A fact to highlight is the age of the interviewees in their homes which are people over 40 years, so it would be important to pay attention to the language that is used when disseminating the information, so that people can understand it and keep it.