Didn’t realize the decline was already this bad

Florida's citrus industry has collapsed from 244 million boxes of oranges in 1997-98 to just 12 million projected for 2024-25—a devastating 95% decline driven by citrus greening disease.   

This catastrophe resulted from decades of industrial farming that abandoned soil-building https://t.co/6AAsXFxHHg

Sam Knowlton

Didn’t realize the decline was already this bad

https://x.com/samdknowlton/status/1936456443659473384?s=46&t=TVy9rDl3UkuxmVj4e18bOA

Growing veggies for the fine folks of Southeastern Massachusetts, w/ a focus on nutrient quality. Always interested in the evolution of digital payments.  🎩

This guy totally ignores the fatal disease we citrus farmers have been battling.  But yes the collapse has been staggering.  Interestingly, isn’t nearly as bad in California where we have been much more aggressively battling the pest vector.

I haven’t been paying attention. Is there hope down the line for a recovery in Florida?

I didn’t think it was prevalent out west at all?

🥑🍋 Farmer / LAMP stack dev / Husband / 🌈 Dad / Web1 dude loving a web3 world / Collector of things digital & physical / 
CdeP ‘94

Another note:  the early research seems to indicate that the psyllids aren’t well adjusted to California weather & have strong natural predators here.  

Our citrus producing areas get too hot for the psyllids in the summer (in the desert) and the cool coastal weather keeps them from recovering numbers in the Spring.  So we have a different situation in California where intense mitigation efforts have been effective but the spread has been slowed by nature also.

The hope will be from disease resistant rootstocks / varieties.  There’s some hope but even that’s more than 10 years away which will be too long for a major recovery.  Florida is also cutting back on research and losing the resources that help farmers battle these conditions (because the industry is in decline).

Out West the story is very different.  HLB positive psyllids have been found in almost every area that commercially produces citrus but the vast majority are found in residential trees.  Those trees are pulled out and replaced which helps protect the commercial groves nearby.

A positive detection just happened last year in my county.  A 5 mile quarantine centered around the infected tree puts 8000 acres of commercial citrus under quarantine for that single detection.  Because of that we are required do do increased spraying before moving fruit or wash and tarp every vehicle transporting fruit on the way to the packing house.  This all happens with a significant added expense but protects our trees from infection.  Because there’s no known cure the quarantine is and will be ongoing.   

A typical quarantine for an invasive fruit fly would end several months after no new detections.  For HLB the psyllid vector infects the tree and the tree can infect new psyllids creating an unending cycle.

I haven’t been paying attention. Is there hope down the line for a recovery in Florida?

I didn’t think it was prevalent out west at all?

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant-pests-diseases/citrus-diseases/citrus-greening-and-asian-citrus-psyllid