Citrus Greening
Monday,
Dec 30
Dec 30
Citrus grower Benny McLean recalls the citrus heyday:
"You could go up and see thousands and thousands [of] acres of trees. And you could buy fresh-squeezed orange juice, or you could buy a bag of navels. So it was a big deal back then."
According to NPR’s Gregg Allen, “It all ended with a series of freezes in the 1980s that devastated citrus in Central Florida. In the '83 freeze, 300,000 acres of mature, fruit-bearing orange and grapefruit trees died in a single night.”
To reclaim some semblance of those glory days, growers eventually moved and set up shop further south. Groves were planted, and business resumed until ... citrus greening reared its ugly head.
The scariest part? Despite the fact that the Citrus Research and Development Foundation is entirely dedicated to cracking this fruit disease, there are no solutions as of yet.
Source: http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/46833
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