At a Glance
- Citrus greening killed 400,000 acres of citrus trees in Florida.
- Mesh nets, malaria-fighting technology are being used to stop tree disease.
- Growers won’t quit despite devastating citrus losses.
Travelers visiting South Florida in pursuit of sun, sand and citrus are in for a big surprise. Sun and sand abound, but the trees once promising mornings of abundant, fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice are dead and gone.
It was a harsh reality to face for University of Florida citrus researcher Fernando Alferez, who left his native Spain for Florida shortly before the first discovery of citrus greening (or HLB) in Dade County in 2006. He returned to Spain, but eventually came back to Florida — and an irrevocably altered citrus production model — in 2017.
“It’s not easy to grow here, and the growers that are remaining tell me very frankly and straightforward, ‘We are here because we are sixth generation or seventh generation, and it’s not going to die with me,’” Alferez said. “They are trying everything to keep going.”
University of Florida researcher Fernando Alferez reviews trial plots at the Southwest Florida Research and Extension Center, where new tools against citrus...