Florida
Related: About this forumWhy Your Orange Juice Might Be From Brazil: Floridas Trees Are Dying
(cross posting from GD https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029640691 )
Florida is synonymous with oranges. Theyre on the state license plate. At the products heyday in 1977, the state boasted 53 orange juice processing plants. Today, beset by bacteria, hurricanes and international competition, there are seven.
A disease called citrus greening is pushing Floridas orange juice industry toward the brink of collapse. Greening starts at the leaves and works its way through the tree like a hardening of the arteries, blocking nutrients and water. Oranges drop off branches unripe and unusable. This years crop will likely be the smallest since the 1940s.
So miserable is the condition of Floridas orange industry that farmers are banking on inventing a genetically engineered orange that will be ready for saleat the earliestin 2022. The secret grove1.5 acres of knee-high trees created with a spinach gene scientists hope can defend against the diseaseis down an unmarked road and behind locked gates. Visitors are logged; the company requested photographs taken by a reporter offer no clues to the groves location.
Greeningwhich also hurts grapefruit, limes, lemons and other citrushas cut Floridas output in half over the past decade, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Revenue and jobs in the citrus sector are each down by about a third in the past three years. The states industry notched revenue of $9 billion in 2016.
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The diseases carrier is the Asian citrus psyllid, a non-native insect so tiny it can be mistaken for a speck of pollen. It travels from grove to grove with little more than a light breeze and is undeterred by pesticides that cant eradicate it entirely. It spreads the Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus bacteria as it sucks sap from the plants. Some growers blame trees shipped to the U.S. from Asia for bringing in the bug. A series of hurricanes in 2004 helped spread the disease throughout Florida.
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The technology, developed by Texas A&M University, inserts a gene that is a part of the immune system of spinach into the genetic structure of an orange. The modified cells grown in a lab eventually shoot out roots and are planted in soil and develop into trees. The project is among Floridas most promising efforts for a cure, even though the trees are still five years away from producing fruit.
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Within the industry and among consumers, there are questions about the use of genetically modified foods, which are widely found in grain crops such as corn and soybeans but are less common in fruit. With consumers moving away from the products, there is a risk that food companies wont be willing to buy genetically modified juice, no matter how successful the science.
More..
https://www.wsj.com/articles/floridas-orange-industry-symbol-of-a-state-is-dying-1506437044
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)csziggy
(34,136 posts)We may not replant citrus - four years ago the grove management firm was recommending that we consider planting a different crop - maybe blueberries.
One of those groves was planted by my father and his brother in the 1930s on land purchased by my grandfather after the land bust in the late 1920s. The other grove was purchased by my parents in the 1950s. It would be sad to see them changed to another crop or for the land to be sold for development but until there is a solution to the greening, it would not be smart to spend more money on citrus.
question everything
(47,473 posts)Easy for me to say, but we are losing so much open space to layers of asphalt..
Hope something works.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)Golf courses and small acreage home sites. But I would prefer to leave them in agricultural production of some kind - though I wish we could find something that required fewer chemicals to produce!