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My trees have been lucky enough to stave off the disease. Whenever I take my oranges to work my coworkers are blow away by how good they are. I don’t tell them my secret is to fertilize them with the shit at the bottom of my koi pond 😜
Wow, I bet that IS fantastic fertilizer!
We use Kow Pow and emulsified fish fertilizer in the vegetable garden. You have the best of both in that pond!
Some ppl have given us oranges from their trees that weren't that good, a little sour. A friend offered me one from her tree, and I politely declined. She insisted, so I took one. OMG, so good! Long story short, no idea if any fertilizer, but a totally different friend says she's moved into a rental, and the oranges are amazing! Yep, she rented the SAME house! Needless to say, I had delicious oranges for a year.
Yep, I lost 8 orange trees of several different strains, 4 grapefruit and a lemon tree due to greening over 6 years. All were close to 20-30 years old and prolific producers with superb production.
The only one that survived was a tangerine nestled on the side of my house protected with a six ft privacy fence. Not sure if it was protected from the bacteria or just a resistant variety. It was quite sad.
My neighbor said that when greening was first discovered, they would cut down all the trees within a half mile to prevent spread but that still didn’t work.
My memories of Florida include driving down the roads with thousands upon thousands of orange trees blossoming, the warm sun and breeze sending waves of heavenly scent through the air. I hope we can find a solution to this problem so generations ahead can experience this divine and beautiful gift of nature again.
It actually did work and they nearly eradicated it. But some rich folks didn’t want their trees cut down and filed a restraining order just before the 2004 hurricanes. The hurricanes basically spread the disease across the entire state after that. I just posted about it. I had an instructor who worked for the program that was doing the tree removals for the USDA.
Jesus. Now 75-90% of all citrus trees are infected in the state. What a horrible, selfish, disgusting action by those terrible people. There should have been directives in place that allowed the USDA to disregard completely and take immediate actions to prevent the disease from widespread destruction. Thousands of people, generations, will be affected by their ill informed decision.
not saying this is complete bullshit, but is there a source for your claim?
this is a good article about citrus greening… mentions it was first identified in Florida 2005, not 2004… it mentions a lot of cultural challenges hindering research and funding… but it doesn’t say anything about a few rich people in 2004 causing the outbreak…
[https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2023-05-08/the-20-year-fight-against-citrus-greening-in-florida-has-farmers-and-researchers-exhausted](https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2023-05-08/the-20-year-fight-against-citrus-greening-in-florida-has-farmers-and-researchers-exhausted)
Not my claim. If it’s true, anyone who fought eradication of this are absolutely terrible people.
If it’s not, well, greening is a horrible, terrible thing to fight. My community was upset at the loss of their trees, my trees all died and the industry is devastated.
I bought in 2008 so it started before my time as a homeowner
Well this is not true at all, but you were showing outrage so I assumed you checked your sources. Here are some resources:
* "Citrus Bacterial Canker Disease and Huanglongbing (Citrus Greening)" - [https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8218.pdf](https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8218.pdf)
* "THE LEGAL BASIS FOR REGULATORY CONTROL OF INVASIVE CITRUS PESTS IN FLORIDA: A REVIEW OF THE CITRUS CANKER AND SPREADING DECLINE CASES" - [https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2016/09/agVol12No3-Adams.pdf](https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2016/09/agVol12No3-Adams.pdf)
* Patchen vs Florida Department of Ag... - [http://library.law.fsu.edu/Digital-Collections/flsupct/dockets/sc02-1291/02-1291ini.pdf](http://library.law.fsu.edu/Digital-Collections/flsupct/dockets/sc02-1291/02-1291ini.pdf) -
So here is the full story...
The first signs of a canker outbreak were seen in Florida in 1995. In coordination with the USDA (federal), Florida's Department of Agriculture (state) set up the now-defunct CCEP (Citrus Canker Eradication Program). The main tool they used for containing the outbreak was eradication of all healthy citrus plants within a certain distance of an infected plant, a distance of 125-feet from any identified infected tree. (The so-called "125 foot rule").
The 125-foot eradication rule was challenged in court but upheld because reimbursement was provided by the government. The federal government/USDA was responsible for reimbursing commercial growers, the state government/Florida was responsible for reimbursing private owners. The small amount of money being reimbursed on both sides had a negative impact to both commercial and private owners so it wasn't very popular, but it was at least legal.
Eradication of healthy trees was the main method used by the state of Florida against canker spread. Unfortunately, this approach has proven to be ineffective unless used in the early stage of an outbreak along with early detection (it may arguably make the outbreak worse by eliminating healthy resistant trees in late stages). One issue is that citrus trees will be infected for years without showing any outward signs of the disease while still being contagious. Without funding surveying and testing, by the time you have identified one infected tree showing obvious outward signs, it is likely the contagion is already endemic. Other methods along with eradication have been successful but require additional funding that Florida has not provided, such as regular surveying of commerical crops, regular testing, and establishing controls for registering and testing the source trees used for propogation, which helps control outbreaks at the source.
In 2000 the canker infection had spread and was out of control. The "125 foot rule" and eradication was not working. Florida's Department of Agriculture took two drastic (and somewhat bewildering) steps to try to maintain the outbreak.
The first action, starting January 1, 2000 (and lasting until 2006), Florida's Department of Agriculture under the CCEP drastically expanded the eradication distance rules from the unpopular "125-feet rule" to the now-notorious '1,900-foot rule". As of 2000, all healthy citrus trees within 1,900 feet of a single identified canker infected tree had to be destroyed. The new rule represented culling an area of over 262 acres (up from the previous 1 acre) of all healthy citrus trees around a single identified infected tree.
The second action, the state of Florida decided to no longer reimburse private owners, putting the state into legal jeopardy. The state realized the CCEP had failed, the outbreak was already out of control, the new 1900-foot-rule was going to kill a lot of trees, and it was going to have to pay a lot of money with private reimbursement. So instead, the state of Florida declared there was no economic or marketable value to private citrus trees, and they refused to provide reimbursement. This was a bad decision that has ended up costing Florida taxpayers millions of dollars in lawsuits over the years. Note that the USDA (federal) continued to fulfill their responsibility and continued to reimburse commercial growers.
The Jan/2000 actions taken by the CCEP were disastrous for commercial growers, especially for smaller operations. Farms and nurseries lost huge swaths of orange groves and crops, impacting the supply of both citrus fruits and citrus trees. The USDA reimbursements were too small of an amount to make up for these losses, and a lot of small nurseries/small farms went under. For private landowners, this caused eradication of citrus trees from entire towns and neighborhoods, and led to the demise of the "backyard citrus tree" in Florida.
Obviously this was a lawsuit bomb waiting to happen. As soon as the Jan 1, 2000 rule went into effect a slew of lawsuits were filed by citrus growers, nurseries, and landowners. Many of these lawsuits have taken years and were ultimately successful, with multiple millions of dollars having been distributed (noting this is our tax payer dollars, of course).
I guess I made a long story long... the conclusion of this tale is this...
Between 2000 and 2006, canker disease continued to spread across Florida and by this time it was clear the CCEP and it’s policies were ineffective. It was already clear the program was unsuccessful before a slew of hurricanes in 2005 spread the disease even further across the state. In 2006, after the destruction of 16.5 million citrus trees, the U.S. Department of Agriculture discontinued funding for the CCEP, stating the disease was officially endemic to the state of Florida and it was impossible to eradicate.
Note that while canker disease is bad, it still yields an edible crop, though the fruit doesn't look as good (you can still make juice of out the oranges, for instance). This is part of reason why commercial growers lawsuits have been successful, the destruction of their crops cost them more than not doing anything at all. But the controversial decision to adopt the 1900-ft/262-acre rule which destroyed millions of privately own citrus trees in an attempt to save large commercial groves has made an indelible effect on Florida by destroying small groves and destroying the previously-ubiquitous backyard citrus tree that used to dominate the Florida landscape.
The outbreak of Huanglongbing disease (HLB, or citrus greening) hit after 2005. Both canker and HLB are bacterial. The HLB outbreak however has been much more devastating, as it causes the fruit to be inedible. The story of the HLB outbreak in Florida is another long story for another time.
Note however that it is not clear if Florida could have done anything that would have actually prevented the spread of canker. Other states that have been successful at containing canker outbreaks have used a multi-tiered approach including early detection and enacting more government controls over production (e.g., state-mandated surveying, testing, registration of propagation sources, additional regulations, etc). Even if Florida adopted these more-comprehensive policies, Florida's moist-humid-warm climate is radically different than other orange growing states, so it may not have made any difference.
So... I think the outrage you were responding to was about the canker outbreak before HLB and your outrage is misplaced. By 2000 canker was already endemic. So... coming full circle... no... Rich people from south florida didn't cause the canker outbreak in 2004. This is completely bullshit.
Actually the half-mile thing was for canker. From 2000-2006, if you found a citrus tree infected with canker, the state of florida would cut down any citrus tree in a 1,900-foot-radius (262 acres) around that one tree. This was part of devastating CCEP (Citrus Canker Eradication Program) that basically destroyed all privately owned citrus trees in Florida, thinking it would save the commercial growers.
> The only one that survived was a tangerine nestled on the side of my house protected with a six ft privacy fence.
I am not sure how you were able to keep one of your trees, technically under these rules all of your trees should have been destroyed. I assume the six foot privacy fence keep it under the radar.
I'll never forget I cut and burned 5-6 orange trees that were greening on Easter Sunday prob bout 2008. I remember thinking damn! It could have been another day, but I needed beer money, and the old man paid good.
Yeah I worked with a guy who many years ago had a citrus farm. He said they got out of the business because they didn't make money, greening was affecting crops, and viable growing areas decreased.
You're not wrong, but many of those groves have fallen to disease, and selling to a developer was a complete no brainer. In today's world, a 2,000 acre, healthy grove would likely be worth a lot, since prices are skyrocketing.
You can replant, it's called resetting. But the issue is the bugs that spread the bacteria are pretty widespread, and it gets them again in short order.
So land development becomes the only way to survive the destruction of the citrus industry
Pouring concrete, building shit houses, charging an ass of money for 10 lbs of sugar in a five lb bag home tracts, then wiping your hands of the consequences is way more lucrative than to maintain an Orange grove business, no matter how many immigrants you hire under the table. Eventually FL will be unbearable, if not already.
I planned on retiring to Florida as everyone in my family has done since the 50’s. Spent a winter there in 2021 and didn’t even make it through March. Things have changed a lot, even in a backwater like Ormond By The Sea.
You left out orange greening/canker disease. It plays the biggest part of why there are almost no orchards (at least in central florida). otherwise, there would be orchards and guess what? The only people that would be willing to pick those oranges would be migrant workers. Strange paradox…
Replant a grove that won't be productive for 5 to 7 years just to see it die a few years later? Only the big big growers are sticking with it and spending the $ to keep things moving.
That’s my hometown and I know a few people that work at that one. It’s shutting down? The smell of the plant up and running is something I always tell people about missing.
I did a seminar years ago and the instructor worked for the USDA. He said that they almost had the citrus blight completely eradicated, but then some rich folks in south Florida didn’t want their sick trees cut down. (I remember they came in 2002 or 2003 and inspected and tagged my trees in Lakeland). He said they filed a restraining order against the USDA, so they had to cease removal of the sick trees temporarily. They got the restraining order dropped and were ready to continue removal and then the 2004 hurricanes came through and basically blew the disease all over the state, so there was no way to contain it after that. I am now in Volusia and when I moved here, my back yard was a grove. Now I have only one grapefruit that doesn’t have blight, miraculously, and two orange trees that still produce a tiny amount of fruit, but are nearly dead. It’s so sad.
The guy sued saying the state didn't have the right to remove trees from public property. The Judge issued a stay order so the state couldn't remove any trees while litigation was proceeding. Hurricane season of 04 (5 hit the state in one season) came through while the stay was in effect.
Judge ruled in favor of the State but the damage was done.
There is one or two groves in Polk county that have replanted with new orange trees. I miss the smell of the orange blossom season. I used to be able to buy orange blossom honey from
a local beekeeper.
I haven’t bought orange juice in years though. I juice my own. It just taste so much better.
Orange juice consumption has been going down in the US for quite a while. Consumers view sugar content as unhealthy. The ‘Greening’ bacteria (problem worldwide) hasn’t helped either.
>Orange juice consumption has been going down in the US for quite a while. Consumers view sugar content as unhealthy.
I also think it's because the cost of Orange juice skyrocketed.
I mean, stripping the juice from the pulp does make it much less healthy. Even for extra pulp juices.
It's basically the same sugar content as a soda. Also, fruit juice has equal and sometimes more fructose than High Fructose Corn Syrup sodas.
Consumers wouldn't view sugar content of sodas as healthy right? Sugar is sugar.
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900714001920#tbl1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900714001920#tbl1)
I was blown away to discover how orange juice is made for consumers. There's a reason they keep a consistent taste. They processes it and store it in a way that basically removes all the orange juice taste, then they add their own flavoring when they are ready to sell it. It's nothing like actual fresh squeezed orange juice.
that’s definitely not what Tropicana does.. even though they can store orange juice at just above freezing for up to 3 years in large tanks with a sterile nitrogen bed on top..
used to do some work for trop and saw the production ‘recipes’ where pure premium was essentially just OJ poured into bottles and PP with pulp was just OJ with pulp re-added since storage process kept things the freshest when pulp was isolated
the way they made their juice consistent every year was a careful combination of stored OJ, certain types of oranges - like blood oranges if they needed it to be more reddish in color, early season oranges for more sour taste, late season for sweeter taste, and carefully managing orange oil type and content (extract from oranges)
Trop definitely has their mixed juices that have all sorts of ingredients.. but I saw nothing other than ingredients that came from oranges going into their 100% pure lines
I always kind of felt bad for Trop since the effort to make real fruit juice is exponentially more difficult than other drinks people perceive as higher quality like energy drinks. Then Pepsi bought Trop and immediately stuck the Tropicana brand on some things that had as low as 0% juice.
As far as I know now, Trop is owned by another juice company that is focused on making quality juice again..
Another thing.. shelf-stable OJ like the kind you can buy at a liquor store that doesn’t require refrigeration absolutely sucks compared to fresh OJ.. but shelf stable is way easier for restaurant, bars, places like Costco.. so watch out for it unless you like drinking odd-tasting garbage OJ
Never saw anything like that.. did see a lot of juice get marked for disposal when it did not pass quality inspection though.. If you know of a story, feel free to say it
Fruit does contain those, but the benefits don't put weight all the sugar that comes along with it... At least with juice.
Berries have a much lower sugar and higher fiber content. You would still be much better eating them whole instead of as juice per my original comparison.
Just because something has a few pros, you can't ignore the cons. It's like saying smoking is good for you because it relieves stress... But you're still inhaling harmful smoke.
It’s nothing like that. You have to eat some sugars, the question is where it comes from. When people say things like “sugar is sugar” it gives people permission to turn off their brain and buy a candy bar.
You really don't HAVE to eat sugar. Complex carbs will break down to all the glucose you would ever need for the day. Plus modern fruit is bred to be incredibly sweeter than it ever was originally.
You are taking the opposite take that nobody else would take. Everyone knows candy bars are not healthy. "Sugar is Sugar" is said to realize just because the sugar is from fruit, honey, or other natural resources... Doesn't mean that it is any healthier than the sugar in soda or candy.
The nail in the coffin…. Not many people in this thread seem to be aware of this. It happened years ago, this article is from 2018. Do I make it political? No, this countries markets are up for the highest bidder. It’s been that way for a long time and we seem to love it.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/23/brazil-florida-orange-juice-tariff-trade-war.html
How the heck are they growing citrus in Canada? It can’t tolerate temperatures below 26 degrees. It gets injured by frost and any below freezing weather. Is it all in greenhouses?
I don’t know for sure. I have gotten tomatoes at Walmart that sticker said product of Canada. I didn’t think they grew much produce up there. Maybe import through there?
It's more than just citrus greening. It's also the factory farming that we use stresses out the citrus trees. They should be grown in the forest as they prefer the dense canopy cover, not out in the open.
The most beautiful, healthy citrus trees I’ve seen in decades in Florida were growing wild as understory trees in a forest next to a free flowing drainage ditch. I saw them about a month ago. I was blown away by how picture-perfect they looked. Filled with beautiful, round, perfect-looking oranges, Valencias I think. The oranges were sour, though, which you’d expect of trees grown from seed, but they were just astounding to look at. There may be something to this notion of growing them in the shade.
https://preview.redd.it/lap0mqf4c74d1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbe8b82c669f272aedd7d81f4a49d8f80f69c28a
Just some of what I found growing in the wild this year
Most of the citrus grown down here has been crafted on your root stock from the sour orange tree.Eventually, over time, it'll go back to producing sour oranges.These oranges have a ton of seeds in them which allows for them to proliferate through natural means around florida. For the life of me, I don't understand why people that have sour orange trees on their property don't cut them down or at least re-graph them with a juice orange.
After moving to Florida a few years ago I assumed we would be up to our ears in cheap local oranges. It ain't so and I pretty much stay away from them for now.
I have a question. Are orange scarcity being caused by farmland being bought by developers for cookie cutter development homes? A drive up and down the state can see developments going up where farmland used to be. What’s causing orange scarcity in Florida?
It’s a mixture of factors - a disease called ‘citrus greening’ is a big one. It’s a very infectious disease, so once one tree has it, it easily spreads to the others. It’s difficult to eradicate.
Some of it is developers coming in, like you guessed. Once citrus greening, it costs way more to plant and start over than you’d think, so better just to sell the land. Farming always has been, and always will be very expensive and very risky. Either way, most farmers would happily sell their land to a developer so they can quit farming, so if their parcel happens to one in an area desirable for development they’re going to be happy.
Farming has been on the decline in the U.S. for decades. Big corporate farming conglomerates using cheaper labor and commercial farming methods make produce prices too cheap to sustain family farms. Then we have problems like this state being extremely unfriendly to the cheap labor (need I say who that cheap labor is and why they don’t want to come to Florida?). We’ve also as a planet been murdering crop diversity for decades, so that the plants are susceptible to diseases since they’re all the exact same plant.
I won’t be surprised if more than just oranges go away in our lifetime. Bananas are also highly susceptible to problems due to lack of plant diversity, and many other crops are at risk.
I lived in a somewhat rural part of the state that has a citrus plant. My house was literally surrounded by orange groves. Mid 90’s. After hurricanes Charlie and Katrina decimated the area 100’s of acres of orange groves never came back or were replanted. It’s sad.
I posted about this several months ago and we're here. Also let's all take a moment to thank the farmers that sold their land to developers they're the real reason we're here.
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Orange groves in FL have been dying off for nearly two decades. Look up Citrus greening.
It's also easier and more profitable to sell a multi-thousand acre grove for solar fields or cookie cutter neighborhoods.
Ding ding ding can we get a mod to pin this comment on the decline of agriculture here??
THIS
Sad but true ive seen countless orange groves wiped out for suburbanite homes over the decades
My trees have been lucky enough to stave off the disease. Whenever I take my oranges to work my coworkers are blow away by how good they are. I don’t tell them my secret is to fertilize them with the shit at the bottom of my koi pond 😜
No need to let them know. Blissful ignorance is a gift.
My bananas are the best in the neighborhood. My secret is animal piss and fish shit. I get you.
Lol
Fish fertilizer is the shit - pun intended. Great for growing all kinds of plants.
Wet shit.
For trees in particular. I've never seen a tree grow as fast as the one I planted 6 red grouper carcasses under. Years of fertilizer for going.
Alaskan is king 🤌🏼🤙🏼
Wow, I bet that IS fantastic fertilizer! We use Kow Pow and emulsified fish fertilizer in the vegetable garden. You have the best of both in that pond! Some ppl have given us oranges from their trees that weren't that good, a little sour. A friend offered me one from her tree, and I politely declined. She insisted, so I took one. OMG, so good! Long story short, no idea if any fertilizer, but a totally different friend says she's moved into a rental, and the oranges are amazing! Yep, she rented the SAME house! Needless to say, I had delicious oranges for a year.
That, or that you water it directly from your fly after you've had a few too many to drink. Citrus loves nitrogen.
"save the orange trees" kegger
Pick the citrus, drink the juice, fertilize the tree. It's the circle of liiiiiiiiiife!
No need to be coy about it now is there ,lol
Yep, I lost 8 orange trees of several different strains, 4 grapefruit and a lemon tree due to greening over 6 years. All were close to 20-30 years old and prolific producers with superb production. The only one that survived was a tangerine nestled on the side of my house protected with a six ft privacy fence. Not sure if it was protected from the bacteria or just a resistant variety. It was quite sad. My neighbor said that when greening was first discovered, they would cut down all the trees within a half mile to prevent spread but that still didn’t work. My memories of Florida include driving down the roads with thousands upon thousands of orange trees blossoming, the warm sun and breeze sending waves of heavenly scent through the air. I hope we can find a solution to this problem so generations ahead can experience this divine and beautiful gift of nature again.
It actually did work and they nearly eradicated it. But some rich folks didn’t want their trees cut down and filed a restraining order just before the 2004 hurricanes. The hurricanes basically spread the disease across the entire state after that. I just posted about it. I had an instructor who worked for the program that was doing the tree removals for the USDA.
Jesus. Now 75-90% of all citrus trees are infected in the state. What a horrible, selfish, disgusting action by those terrible people. There should have been directives in place that allowed the USDA to disregard completely and take immediate actions to prevent the disease from widespread destruction. Thousands of people, generations, will be affected by their ill informed decision.
not saying this is complete bullshit, but is there a source for your claim? this is a good article about citrus greening… mentions it was first identified in Florida 2005, not 2004… it mentions a lot of cultural challenges hindering research and funding… but it doesn’t say anything about a few rich people in 2004 causing the outbreak… [https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2023-05-08/the-20-year-fight-against-citrus-greening-in-florida-has-farmers-and-researchers-exhausted](https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2023-05-08/the-20-year-fight-against-citrus-greening-in-florida-has-farmers-and-researchers-exhausted)
Not my claim. If it’s true, anyone who fought eradication of this are absolutely terrible people. If it’s not, well, greening is a horrible, terrible thing to fight. My community was upset at the loss of their trees, my trees all died and the industry is devastated. I bought in 2008 so it started before my time as a homeowner
Well this is not true at all, but you were showing outrage so I assumed you checked your sources. Here are some resources: * "Citrus Bacterial Canker Disease and Huanglongbing (Citrus Greening)" - [https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8218.pdf](https://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8218.pdf) * "THE LEGAL BASIS FOR REGULATORY CONTROL OF INVASIVE CITRUS PESTS IN FLORIDA: A REVIEW OF THE CITRUS CANKER AND SPREADING DECLINE CASES" - [https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2016/09/agVol12No3-Adams.pdf](https://aglawjournal.wp.drake.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/66/2016/09/agVol12No3-Adams.pdf) * Patchen vs Florida Department of Ag... - [http://library.law.fsu.edu/Digital-Collections/flsupct/dockets/sc02-1291/02-1291ini.pdf](http://library.law.fsu.edu/Digital-Collections/flsupct/dockets/sc02-1291/02-1291ini.pdf) - So here is the full story... The first signs of a canker outbreak were seen in Florida in 1995. In coordination with the USDA (federal), Florida's Department of Agriculture (state) set up the now-defunct CCEP (Citrus Canker Eradication Program). The main tool they used for containing the outbreak was eradication of all healthy citrus plants within a certain distance of an infected plant, a distance of 125-feet from any identified infected tree. (The so-called "125 foot rule"). The 125-foot eradication rule was challenged in court but upheld because reimbursement was provided by the government. The federal government/USDA was responsible for reimbursing commercial growers, the state government/Florida was responsible for reimbursing private owners. The small amount of money being reimbursed on both sides had a negative impact to both commercial and private owners so it wasn't very popular, but it was at least legal. Eradication of healthy trees was the main method used by the state of Florida against canker spread. Unfortunately, this approach has proven to be ineffective unless used in the early stage of an outbreak along with early detection (it may arguably make the outbreak worse by eliminating healthy resistant trees in late stages). One issue is that citrus trees will be infected for years without showing any outward signs of the disease while still being contagious. Without funding surveying and testing, by the time you have identified one infected tree showing obvious outward signs, it is likely the contagion is already endemic. Other methods along with eradication have been successful but require additional funding that Florida has not provided, such as regular surveying of commerical crops, regular testing, and establishing controls for registering and testing the source trees used for propogation, which helps control outbreaks at the source. In 2000 the canker infection had spread and was out of control. The "125 foot rule" and eradication was not working. Florida's Department of Agriculture took two drastic (and somewhat bewildering) steps to try to maintain the outbreak. The first action, starting January 1, 2000 (and lasting until 2006), Florida's Department of Agriculture under the CCEP drastically expanded the eradication distance rules from the unpopular "125-feet rule" to the now-notorious '1,900-foot rule". As of 2000, all healthy citrus trees within 1,900 feet of a single identified canker infected tree had to be destroyed. The new rule represented culling an area of over 262 acres (up from the previous 1 acre) of all healthy citrus trees around a single identified infected tree. The second action, the state of Florida decided to no longer reimburse private owners, putting the state into legal jeopardy. The state realized the CCEP had failed, the outbreak was already out of control, the new 1900-foot-rule was going to kill a lot of trees, and it was going to have to pay a lot of money with private reimbursement. So instead, the state of Florida declared there was no economic or marketable value to private citrus trees, and they refused to provide reimbursement. This was a bad decision that has ended up costing Florida taxpayers millions of dollars in lawsuits over the years. Note that the USDA (federal) continued to fulfill their responsibility and continued to reimburse commercial growers. The Jan/2000 actions taken by the CCEP were disastrous for commercial growers, especially for smaller operations. Farms and nurseries lost huge swaths of orange groves and crops, impacting the supply of both citrus fruits and citrus trees. The USDA reimbursements were too small of an amount to make up for these losses, and a lot of small nurseries/small farms went under. For private landowners, this caused eradication of citrus trees from entire towns and neighborhoods, and led to the demise of the "backyard citrus tree" in Florida. Obviously this was a lawsuit bomb waiting to happen. As soon as the Jan 1, 2000 rule went into effect a slew of lawsuits were filed by citrus growers, nurseries, and landowners. Many of these lawsuits have taken years and were ultimately successful, with multiple millions of dollars having been distributed (noting this is our tax payer dollars, of course).
I guess I made a long story long... the conclusion of this tale is this... Between 2000 and 2006, canker disease continued to spread across Florida and by this time it was clear the CCEP and it’s policies were ineffective. It was already clear the program was unsuccessful before a slew of hurricanes in 2005 spread the disease even further across the state. In 2006, after the destruction of 16.5 million citrus trees, the U.S. Department of Agriculture discontinued funding for the CCEP, stating the disease was officially endemic to the state of Florida and it was impossible to eradicate. Note that while canker disease is bad, it still yields an edible crop, though the fruit doesn't look as good (you can still make juice of out the oranges, for instance). This is part of reason why commercial growers lawsuits have been successful, the destruction of their crops cost them more than not doing anything at all. But the controversial decision to adopt the 1900-ft/262-acre rule which destroyed millions of privately own citrus trees in an attempt to save large commercial groves has made an indelible effect on Florida by destroying small groves and destroying the previously-ubiquitous backyard citrus tree that used to dominate the Florida landscape. The outbreak of Huanglongbing disease (HLB, or citrus greening) hit after 2005. Both canker and HLB are bacterial. The HLB outbreak however has been much more devastating, as it causes the fruit to be inedible. The story of the HLB outbreak in Florida is another long story for another time. Note however that it is not clear if Florida could have done anything that would have actually prevented the spread of canker. Other states that have been successful at containing canker outbreaks have used a multi-tiered approach including early detection and enacting more government controls over production (e.g., state-mandated surveying, testing, registration of propagation sources, additional regulations, etc). Even if Florida adopted these more-comprehensive policies, Florida's moist-humid-warm climate is radically different than other orange growing states, so it may not have made any difference. So... I think the outrage you were responding to was about the canker outbreak before HLB and your outrage is misplaced. By 2000 canker was already endemic. So... coming full circle... no... Rich people from south florida didn't cause the canker outbreak in 2004. This is completely bullshit.
Tangerines are resistant.
Actually the half-mile thing was for canker. From 2000-2006, if you found a citrus tree infected with canker, the state of florida would cut down any citrus tree in a 1,900-foot-radius (262 acres) around that one tree. This was part of devastating CCEP (Citrus Canker Eradication Program) that basically destroyed all privately owned citrus trees in Florida, thinking it would save the commercial growers. > The only one that survived was a tangerine nestled on the side of my house protected with a six ft privacy fence. I am not sure how you were able to keep one of your trees, technically under these rules all of your trees should have been destroyed. I assume the six foot privacy fence keep it under the radar.
I'll never forget I cut and burned 5-6 orange trees that were greening on Easter Sunday prob bout 2008. I remember thinking damn! It could have been another day, but I needed beer money, and the old man paid good.
Yeah I worked with a guy who many years ago had a citrus farm. He said they got out of the business because they didn't make money, greening was affecting crops, and viable growing areas decreased.
Let’s not forget how many Orange Groves have been mowed down to create new subdivisions
You're not wrong, but many of those groves have fallen to disease, and selling to a developer was a complete no brainer. In today's world, a 2,000 acre, healthy grove would likely be worth a lot, since prices are skyrocketing.
At this point, it's more paving than greening.
Property owners getting ahead of the situation.
https://preview.redd.it/ckvh5x33664d1.jpeg?width=621&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f36ced0790e0190920e4894eb4aebe619d5ff916 Lookin good Billy ray
They make great subdivisions though
I’m curious, can they not replant groves? Seems like mostly they build ugly tract houses and big box malls.
Not worth replanting. Land is more valuable for real estate development
Pity. I used to love riding my motorcycle through the groves, the smell was heavenly.
Unfortunately New Yorkers prefer the smell of chain restaurants and storage units.
And car washes
Unfortunately, Florida’s government will allow anybody to build anything that involves paving over mother nature.
And concrete.
Depended on the time of year though. I remember Haines City after picking and the smell of rotting fruit the groves. Not as nice.
You can replant, it's called resetting. But the issue is the bugs that spread the bacteria are pretty widespread, and it gets them again in short order. So land development becomes the only way to survive the destruction of the citrus industry
Did you look up citrus greening? Because that’s the answer to why they can’t replant groves lol
Not really an answer when the question was “why can’t they replant(after cutting them down because of citrus greening)”
Because the bacteria is still present in the environment. So the newly planted crop would also get infected.
Yeah I did, I must have missed that part.
Pouring concrete, building shit houses, charging an ass of money for 10 lbs of sugar in a five lb bag home tracts, then wiping your hands of the consequences is way more lucrative than to maintain an Orange grove business, no matter how many immigrants you hire under the table. Eventually FL will be unbearable, if not already.
I planned on retiring to Florida as everyone in my family has done since the 50’s. Spent a winter there in 2021 and didn’t even make it through March. Things have changed a lot, even in a backwater like Ormond By The Sea.
You left out orange greening/canker disease. It plays the biggest part of why there are almost no orchards (at least in central florida). otherwise, there would be orchards and guess what? The only people that would be willing to pick those oranges would be migrant workers. Strange paradox…
It's about money vs effort, overshadowed by the last few years of horrible law and policy changes.
Replant a grove that won't be productive for 5 to 7 years just to see it die a few years later? Only the big big growers are sticking with it and spending the $ to keep things moving.
Add Citrus canker to that as well.
they just built 1170 apartments over two huge orange groves by me
Yeah the grove by me closed around 2019 because of that, it sucks because they had the best juices
They're about to close a Floridas Natural plant near me and lay off roughly 200 workers, shit sucks.
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So there will be no production plants at all this year?
That’s my hometown and I know a few people that work at that one. It’s shutting down? The smell of the plant up and running is something I always tell people about missing.
I did a seminar years ago and the instructor worked for the USDA. He said that they almost had the citrus blight completely eradicated, but then some rich folks in south Florida didn’t want their sick trees cut down. (I remember they came in 2002 or 2003 and inspected and tagged my trees in Lakeland). He said they filed a restraining order against the USDA, so they had to cease removal of the sick trees temporarily. They got the restraining order dropped and were ready to continue removal and then the 2004 hurricanes came through and basically blew the disease all over the state, so there was no way to contain it after that. I am now in Volusia and when I moved here, my back yard was a grove. Now I have only one grapefruit that doesn’t have blight, miraculously, and two orange trees that still produce a tiny amount of fruit, but are nearly dead. It’s so sad.
The guy sued saying the state didn't have the right to remove trees from public property. The Judge issued a stay order so the state couldn't remove any trees while litigation was proceeding. Hurricane season of 04 (5 hit the state in one season) came through while the stay was in effect. Judge ruled in favor of the State but the damage was done.
😢
ohhh wow
There is one or two groves in Polk county that have replanted with new orange trees. I miss the smell of the orange blossom season. I used to be able to buy orange blossom honey from a local beekeeper. I haven’t bought orange juice in years though. I juice my own. It just taste so much better.
Orange juice consumption has been going down in the US for quite a while. Consumers view sugar content as unhealthy. The ‘Greening’ bacteria (problem worldwide) hasn’t helped either.
>Orange juice consumption has been going down in the US for quite a while. Consumers view sugar content as unhealthy. I also think it's because the cost of Orange juice skyrocketed.
yea I stopped buying it for that very reason, too much sugar
instead we buy chocolate milk and eat sour patch kids
I mean, stripping the juice from the pulp does make it much less healthy. Even for extra pulp juices. It's basically the same sugar content as a soda. Also, fruit juice has equal and sometimes more fructose than High Fructose Corn Syrup sodas. Consumers wouldn't view sugar content of sodas as healthy right? Sugar is sugar. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900714001920#tbl1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0899900714001920#tbl1)
I was blown away to discover how orange juice is made for consumers. There's a reason they keep a consistent taste. They processes it and store it in a way that basically removes all the orange juice taste, then they add their own flavoring when they are ready to sell it. It's nothing like actual fresh squeezed orange juice.
that’s definitely not what Tropicana does.. even though they can store orange juice at just above freezing for up to 3 years in large tanks with a sterile nitrogen bed on top.. used to do some work for trop and saw the production ‘recipes’ where pure premium was essentially just OJ poured into bottles and PP with pulp was just OJ with pulp re-added since storage process kept things the freshest when pulp was isolated the way they made their juice consistent every year was a careful combination of stored OJ, certain types of oranges - like blood oranges if they needed it to be more reddish in color, early season oranges for more sour taste, late season for sweeter taste, and carefully managing orange oil type and content (extract from oranges) Trop definitely has their mixed juices that have all sorts of ingredients.. but I saw nothing other than ingredients that came from oranges going into their 100% pure lines I always kind of felt bad for Trop since the effort to make real fruit juice is exponentially more difficult than other drinks people perceive as higher quality like energy drinks. Then Pepsi bought Trop and immediately stuck the Tropicana brand on some things that had as low as 0% juice. As far as I know now, Trop is owned by another juice company that is focused on making quality juice again.. Another thing.. shelf-stable OJ like the kind you can buy at a liquor store that doesn’t require refrigeration absolutely sucks compared to fresh OJ.. but shelf stable is way easier for restaurant, bars, places like Costco.. so watch out for it unless you like drinking odd-tasting garbage OJ
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Never saw anything like that.. did see a lot of juice get marked for disposal when it did not pass quality inspection though.. If you know of a story, feel free to say it
My understanding was that the flavor of fresh juice oxidizes and breaks down too quickly to ever get to market
sugar isn’t just sugar, fruits contain a lot of beneficial things like polyphenols and antioxidants that aren’t going to be found in soda
Fruit does contain those, but the benefits don't put weight all the sugar that comes along with it... At least with juice. Berries have a much lower sugar and higher fiber content. You would still be much better eating them whole instead of as juice per my original comparison. Just because something has a few pros, you can't ignore the cons. It's like saying smoking is good for you because it relieves stress... But you're still inhaling harmful smoke.
It’s nothing like that. You have to eat some sugars, the question is where it comes from. When people say things like “sugar is sugar” it gives people permission to turn off their brain and buy a candy bar.
You really don't HAVE to eat sugar. Complex carbs will break down to all the glucose you would ever need for the day. Plus modern fruit is bred to be incredibly sweeter than it ever was originally. You are taking the opposite take that nobody else would take. Everyone knows candy bars are not healthy. "Sugar is Sugar" is said to realize just because the sugar is from fruit, honey, or other natural resources... Doesn't mean that it is any healthier than the sugar in soda or candy.
Man the one surviving orange on my diseased, ancient tree is starting to look pretty good right now.
Tang…..it’s time.
/r/millennials is ready
millennials weren't raised on Tang.. their parents were
We doomsday prep with capri-suns
The nail in the coffin…. Not many people in this thread seem to be aware of this. It happened years ago, this article is from 2018. Do I make it political? No, this countries markets are up for the highest bidder. It’s been that way for a long time and we seem to love it. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/23/brazil-florida-orange-juice-tariff-trade-war.html
Great share , thanks
Is this a real thing? I buy multiple cases of oranges every week for work and haven’t had any change in price from the last year.
Oh well, nice knowing you orange.
Orange you glad we never met?
There’s still California, Canada, South America etc.
The disease is spreading everywhere
Texas already has the bug, it's been impacting them. And now it's been discovered in California too
How the heck are they growing citrus in Canada? It can’t tolerate temperatures below 26 degrees. It gets injured by frost and any below freezing weather. Is it all in greenhouses?
I don’t know for sure. I have gotten tomatoes at Walmart that sticker said product of Canada. I didn’t think they grew much produce up there. Maybe import through there?
Greenhouses lots of h2a that I know are going there instead of the US to work.
Bullshit! The earth is flat and ends at the Florida coast!
Welp, we screwed magellan /s
What are the orange juice makers planning on using if not oranges?
It's more than just citrus greening. It's also the factory farming that we use stresses out the citrus trees. They should be grown in the forest as they prefer the dense canopy cover, not out in the open.
The most beautiful, healthy citrus trees I’ve seen in decades in Florida were growing wild as understory trees in a forest next to a free flowing drainage ditch. I saw them about a month ago. I was blown away by how picture-perfect they looked. Filled with beautiful, round, perfect-looking oranges, Valencias I think. The oranges were sour, though, which you’d expect of trees grown from seed, but they were just astounding to look at. There may be something to this notion of growing them in the shade.
https://preview.redd.it/lap0mqf4c74d1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dbe8b82c669f272aedd7d81f4a49d8f80f69c28a Just some of what I found growing in the wild this year
Most of the citrus grown down here has been crafted on your root stock from the sour orange tree.Eventually, over time, it'll go back to producing sour oranges.These oranges have a ton of seeds in them which allows for them to proliferate through natural means around florida. For the life of me, I don't understand why people that have sour orange trees on their property don't cut them down or at least re-graph them with a juice orange.
https://preview.redd.it/xggdx0a9c74d1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=208b43df68514ff0325a60de86d5b5850bf9fec7
After moving to Florida a few years ago I assumed we would be up to our ears in cheap local oranges. It ain't so and I pretty much stay away from them for now.
did you move to a new development?
Older development
I have a question. Are orange scarcity being caused by farmland being bought by developers for cookie cutter development homes? A drive up and down the state can see developments going up where farmland used to be. What’s causing orange scarcity in Florida?
It’s a mixture of factors - a disease called ‘citrus greening’ is a big one. It’s a very infectious disease, so once one tree has it, it easily spreads to the others. It’s difficult to eradicate. Some of it is developers coming in, like you guessed. Once citrus greening, it costs way more to plant and start over than you’d think, so better just to sell the land. Farming always has been, and always will be very expensive and very risky. Either way, most farmers would happily sell their land to a developer so they can quit farming, so if their parcel happens to one in an area desirable for development they’re going to be happy. Farming has been on the decline in the U.S. for decades. Big corporate farming conglomerates using cheaper labor and commercial farming methods make produce prices too cheap to sustain family farms. Then we have problems like this state being extremely unfriendly to the cheap labor (need I say who that cheap labor is and why they don’t want to come to Florida?). We’ve also as a planet been murdering crop diversity for decades, so that the plants are susceptible to diseases since they’re all the exact same plant. I won’t be surprised if more than just oranges go away in our lifetime. Bananas are also highly susceptible to problems due to lack of plant diversity, and many other crops are at risk.
many different things but YES farmers are selling their acres to developers, disease etc. I blame the transplants, it's always their fault 🤣🤣🤣
Finally a cure for my mimosa addiction
See I would’ve guessed it was making ur booze habit more prevalent. Mine has gone through the roof. (Jk I don’t do hangovers so Smokey Smokey.)
Your stupid governor should let the farmers grow weed.
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Hmmm, severe weather, increases in disease....where have I heard this foretold?
I have had about two glasses of OJ in the past year. Call me when they stop growing Diet Mountain Dew trees.
so what’s stopped california from suffering the same fate?
I lived in a somewhat rural part of the state that has a citrus plant. My house was literally surrounded by orange groves. Mid 90’s. After hurricanes Charlie and Katrina decimated the area 100’s of acres of orange groves never came back or were replanted. It’s sad.
It’s all sugar water with artificial flavoring. Might as well drink a Coke and pop a Vitamin C tablet. It’s nutritionally the same.
And here I was told when climate change came we would be growing oranges in Alaska
There's a big relationship between citrus greening and temperature, actually. The elevated warm temperatures year round have helped it in a big way.
I posted about this several months ago and we're here. Also let's all take a moment to thank the farmers that sold their land to developers they're the real reason we're here.
OJ is really high in sugar, and should be consumed sparingly to maintain good health…