POLK COUNTY, Fla. – A small insect that carries a powerful disease is threatening the future of your cold morning glass of Florida orange juice.
Researchers blame Citrus Greening Disease for a nearly 80% drop in Florida’s citrus production since 2005.
Records show it dropped 60% between 2022 and 2023 alone.
The disease is caused by a bacterium carried by small insects. Infected trees produce small, dry pieces of fruit, and the tree eventually dies.
The drastic drop in production is why the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or UF/IFAS, is working hard to stop the disease’s spread.
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“The orange should be bigger — Florida nice and juicy,” said UF Professor Charlie Messina. “They’re all green.”
Messina is leading a new project called the Crop Transformation Center.
UF President Ben Sasse pledged $2 million to combat Citrus Greening Disease in hopes of shoring up the state’s citrus industry.
“I think the industry could disappear in a couple years,” Messina said.
Climate Change’s Impact
The bacteria that cause Citrus Greening Disease thrives in temperatures between 60 and 90 degrees, which describes the average day in Central Florida.
The warming climate, however, is creating longer stretches of those temperatures, and that is not helping.
Averting Disaster
UF Professor Fred Gmitter calls what is happening to Florida’s citrus industry “a disaster.”
“We’re really one of the very few places where organized citrus breeding has been taking place in the middle of this disaster,” he said.
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Gmitter helped to host a gathering of growers at the university’s Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred, where they sampled some of the products of his citrus breeding with the hope that they would plant some of them.
He said he is looking for existing strains of orange trees that are resilient against Citrus Greening Disease, and he has already found a couple.
He said the trick is making sure they still taste good.
“This tree really held up well against greening,” he told News 6 holding up a slice of orange. “There are growers that we would like to have say, ‘Let me grow some of this.’”
Messina said he is exploring the possibility of editing the genetic makeup of some orange trees to create what amounts to an immunity booster at the cellular level.
He knows he does not have much time to accomplish that.
“The results are really promising from what I see from our cell scientists,” he said. “Science is our best chance.”
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