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The world's citrus is being destroyed - here's what scientists are doing about it

Citrus fruits in Florida are facing a bombardment from a pest called a “Asian citrus psyllid”.

Citrus Greening Emergency Citrus greening is causing worry for Florida growers. The condition is causing bacteria to grow on the leaf and fruit, eventually killing the tree. AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

ANYONE WHO DELIGHTS in freshly squeezed orange juice or eats grapefruit for breakfast should take a moment to stop and savor the taste of those citrus fruits. Many of them are at risk of being destroyed by a disease spread by an invasive pest that’s been sweeping across the citrus-producing regions of the world.

“It’s horrible — it’s a disaster,” says Fred Gmitter, a professor of horticulture science at the University of Florida Citrus Research and Education Center.

It might be time to kiss your OJ goodbye, unless science steps in to save the day.

At least 70% of Florida’s citrus trees are already infected by the disease, known as citrus greening, huanglongbing, or occasionally just with an ominous “it,” as in “It’s here.”

Florida’s citrus crop this year is the lowest it’s been in 30 years, and agricultural authorities have continued to lower their production estimates. Orange-juice prices are up nearly 20% this year alone and will continue to rise. The disease was a major factor in the lime shortage that made the price of a box of Persian limes jump from $18 to $85 last December. Prices could jump higher for oranges. Researchers and growers say that if a cure isn’t found, the entire $9 billion Florida citrus industry could be destroyed.

A Big Hit To Breakfast

Citrus Disease Detected A trap designed to catch the Asian citrus psyllids that carry the disease to citrus trees AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

The disease first appeared in Florida in 2005. It is caused by bacteria spread by a 4-millimeter-long bug called the Asian citrus psyllid, which looks a little like an aphid but is much more active. The bacteria turns fruit sour and changes its color. These unripe fruit fall from the trees and eventually die.

Researchers, citrus growers, and agriculture officials are doing everything they can to stop its spread. The desperate nature of the effort elucidates the severity of the problem.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently allocated $31.5 million to fight the disease in Florida, a number that seems like a lot until you consider that Florida’s citrus industry is worth $9 billion and employs 76,000 people. Initiatives have been launched to stop the spread of the disease in Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana.

Researchers and growers all over Florida are breeding trees and trying to find hardy ones that can survive long enough to get the pests under control. Part of the USDA’s money is going toward approving new varieties of citrus.

In California — which produces 80% of the whole-fruit citrus eaten in the U.S., an industry worth $2 billion — the USDA recently promised $1.5 million to help release a million parasitic Pakistani wasps each year. The wasps hunt the psyllid bugs, which have spread to the state, though no one is certain how far they’ve spread the greening bacteria yet.

Around the world, in Asia, Africa, and South America, similar efforts are underway. In Brazil, the only place that produces more orange juice than Florida, diseased orange groves are cut down entirely and healthy trees are planted in new groves, hopefully far enough away that the bugs won’t find and infect them.

But alone these measures haven’t been sufficient. The wasps can, at best, slash the psyllid population by a third. Eliminating diseased trees hasn’t stopped the disease from spreading from country to country and even continent to continent. Short-term strategies are like putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound, though they may help farmers who are “hanging on by a string” stay in business a little longer, Gmitter says.

Without being able to cure the disease, greening will continue to leave millions of acres of trees devastated and put global citrus production in peril.

Citrus Greening Emergency A dead orange tree in a grove in Florida AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

Science To The Rescue

The psyllids are hard to kill because they spread so rapidly, though massive insecticide sprayings have occasionally helped large commercial growers stave off disaster for a year. But the next big issue is that the bugs are becoming resistant to pesticides; they survive these chemicals meant to kill them. The price of citrus is rising rapidly and will continue to do so as the fruit becomes scarcer.

Some researchers think this blight attacking our beloved oranges will be the thing that persuades Americans to accept genetically modified organisms. There’s hope that GMO citrus with a string of viral DNA would be resistant to the disease. In an article on citrus greening in The New York Times last summer, Ricke Kress, the president of a company in charge of 2.5 million trees and one that squeezes juice for Tropicana and Florida’s Natural, was quoted telling his boss “the consumer will support us if it’s the only way.”

Gmitter thinks that if GMO citrus tree used a gene from another citrus fruit, it might be easier to get people to accept it. But genetically modified citrus trees will still take time to create and can be expensive.

healthy orange tree A blight-free orange tree rafael-castillo / flickr rafael-castillo / flickr / flickr

Recently, another potential cure for the disease may have been uncovered. A study from the University of Florida showed that a chemical called benzbromarone that’s occasionally used to treat gout in humans (though not approved in the U.S. for concerns about effects on the liver) was able to stop the bacteria in about 80% of trees that were tested.

Still, approving a new treatment chemical would probably take five to seven years at least, according to the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers who discovered the chemical’s potential. Even then, there’s no guarantee that the treatment will work in the field or that the bacteria wouldn’t develop a resistance to it.

It’s time to think long and hard about what our orange juice, tangerines, and grapefruit are worth. They may not be around for much longer.

- Kevin Loria

READ: The ‘Fruit Whispering’ mystery has been solved… and here’s the campaign behind it

READ: Ireland has 68 types of apple – and now there’s a book about them

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    Mute Brian Corcoran
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:26 PM

    Nobody loves taking the bus. The government has made having a car so damn expensive some people have no other option

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    Mute Play Against Par
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:38 PM

    If “bus” is code for “piss” then I wholeheartedly agree!

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    Mute Zozzy Zozimus
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    Jun 4th 2015, 8:25 PM

    I love my Dublin Bus.

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    Mute Manuel Moreira
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    Jun 4th 2015, 11:57 PM

    @Brian you see amazing things when you take the bus, such as:
    -junkies having sex in the back;
    -someone talking too loud on the phone;
    -oh shit I think I just stepped on poop;
    -how did a begger get in to ask me for money? o.o

    Actually nevermind, point taken o.o

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    Mute Dylan Wadey
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:41 PM

    If you’re using public transport never give up your seat to an old lady…
    That’s how I lost my job as a bus driver.

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    Mute David Hammond
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:43 PM

    Now that passenger numbers have increased will fares be coming down? After all, one of the main reasons for all the increases over the last number of years was falling passenger numbers.

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    Mute Deborah Behan
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:10 PM

    X1,000

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    Mute Stephen
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:31 PM

    I love the bus, you do see all sorts. I once seen two junkies having sex at the back of bus coming home one night. To quote them he said “get your tits out?” She replied “Ah noo not yet, wait” charming experience all together

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    Mute Arthur Callaghan
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:29 PM

    I think we are the only country that say thanks to the bus driver when getting off

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    Mute Barry Davidson
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:46 PM

    We’re the only country that’s passes the bus driver getting off the bloody thing holding up all the boarding passengers.

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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Jun 4th 2015, 8:09 PM

    Because you’d need two staff per bus to do it the other way. Saying thanks to the bus driver is just polite. You say thanks to a taxi driver so why not a bus driver?

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    Mute ted hagan
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    Jun 5th 2015, 6:26 AM

    We like to think we are. They do it in most countries. It’s just of those ‘aren’t we Irish cute’ things.

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    Mute The Emigrant
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:41 PM

    Do you know what Irish people hate? A lack of proper fücking transport!

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    Mute fiachra29
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:52 PM

    I often use the train, Bus Éireann and the luas and I think all those services run quite well although they could do with coming down in price. Dublin Bus on the other hand is the most chaotic, confusing and user unfriendly service out there, it’s as if they don’t want people to use the bus.

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    Mute Jimmy Jim-Jim
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:39 PM

    Bus Eireann intercity is fine if you want to get from the very start of the route to the very end of it. The timetable is only a vague suggestion for stops in between.

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    Mute Plantation Watch
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    Jun 4th 2015, 8:42 PM

    And make sure you use relieve yourself before hand as if theres a jax its sure to be locked.

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    Mute Colin Moran
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:03 PM

    Dublin Bus would be brilliant if it wasn’t for the other passengers.

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    Mute Neal Ireland Hello
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:34 PM

    I urinate several times a day, too. Doesn’t mean I love it.

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    Mute Paul Reid
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:29 PM

    It’s the bus drivers because we are all so sexy!!!

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    Mute Lee Power
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:27 PM

    I love the bus. I bleedin hate the withworth road!

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    Mute Seth Mcguinness
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:14 PM

    They’re a nightmare, they bring you on safari. I honestly think the number 16 passes through Donegal twice on its route.

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    Mute John Collins
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:50 PM

    I hate taking the bus with a burning passion.

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    Mute Caroline Mantl
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:04 PM

    Must make it difficult to sit down alright.

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    Mute Ben Redline
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:08 PM

    Excellent Caroline B-)

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    Mute bandido
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:51 PM

    And yet before September comes they will be given an increase in ticket prices citing “falling passenger number”.
    This will be the third consecutive year.

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    Mute North Korean General
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:17 PM

    Blame FG/Lab… Maybe they will give Dennis O’Brian favourable loan terms so he can but it. He seems to be buying everything else!!!!

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    Mute Biodiversity Watch On Biology-ie
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:22 PM

    How come there is no link to the previous story about two people being assaulted on the bus?

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    Mute Integra-Ted
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    Jun 4th 2015, 7:31 PM

    Irish people love getting the bus without being beaten mercilessly for no good reason by some waster….

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    Mute Drew
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    Jun 4th 2015, 6:44 PM

    Nice phrasing…. They experienced a surplus owing to allocation of additional funding and subsidies.

    So they run an unprofitable constant tax payer subsidised deficit. The deficit was merely less than they expected it to be this year?

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    Mute paul burnett
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    Jun 4th 2015, 9:22 PM

    Said no man ever

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    Mute ted hagan
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    Jun 5th 2015, 6:23 AM

    Just reading this as I wait for the number 44 to arrive. Five minutes to go. I’m all excited now. I’ll let you all know how I got on…. oh, hurry up!

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jun 5th 2015, 12:41 AM

    Do you know what Irish people love?
    Gossiping, getting things rear ways and Chinese rumours???
    Whoops…

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    Mute Gillian Kennedy
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    Jun 4th 2015, 10:43 PM

    So you don’t think there are more journeys because more people are in work?

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jun 5th 2015, 12:42 AM

    What work, there are more journeys because the pensioners love riding the free travel lol.

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    Mute Mrs Shalakalananaka
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    Jun 5th 2015, 9:03 AM

    “Public transport is for losers” – Homer.

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