FL has got to do something about educating people of the problem of greening. People just don't know, and many don't seem to care.

http://members3.boardhost.com/HardyPalm/msg/1223425373.html

Agree with you there Laaz! The cost of implementing the quarantine is prohibitive to be truly effective. A half-baked implementation up to 99% quarantine effectivity is still worth nothing. Frankly, the government and the public cannot afford 100% quarantine effectivity. No one for example is willing to wait long lines at various state roadblocks or inspection facilities while they are stripped search for every crevices that a pathogen might hitch a ride.

Money is better spent on researching for disease resistance, developing better cultivars, and practices to help minimize the spread of diseases, even how to survive and thrive under disease pressures. It has been done by other people.

After reading the posting's on he Palm web site concerning the exporting of citrus tree across Florida's state lines, I had feeling of what an absolutely rotten job the state of Florida is doing to insure the safety of their citrus industry. Then after reading Joe Real's reply posting, I seen the wisdom of what Joe has written, and agree that it probably is better to put their time and money into research. As Joe says, a 100 percent quarantine would be much to costly, and impossible to in force. Still Florida's quarantine enforcement efforts seem to be quite lacking. Lets hope for good outcome, as a lot of good people rely on the citrus industry for their livelihood. - Millet

I agree with Joe that a 100% quarentine in impossible, and I disagree that FL is doing a lousy job of protecting it's industry--the things they have implemented like screenhouse requirements, required treatments of citrus plants and nursery inspections have probably significantly reduced the spread of disease.

But-- They are not doing what they should do to protect other citrus states. There should be very visible--clear warnings posted at every point of sale for citrus plants indicating that it is illegal to transport out of state. To go a little further--they could forbid sale to anyone without a FL drivers license--but that would be regulating business.

It would be real easy to provide leaflets to inform the tourist population of the problem.. Granted this would only inform them.. but it would keep honest ppl honest.. Education of the problem would HELP reduce the possibility of the spread..
Heck.. put a tack on to their TV adds for OJ.. "It is against the law to transport FL citrus trees out of state"..????

I don't think ppl understand that is why they push the sale of their OJ so much..
Fruit is too ugly to sale.. but still makes good OJ..

Just my .02c + .10c sales tax

Gina *BabyBlue*

Skeet wrote, "the things they have implemented like screen house requirements, inspections and treatments". There is no treatment for greening. Inspection is definitely good, but in the case of greening, when a diseased tree is found it is much to late, as hundreds of other trees have already been infected. However, screen house nurseries is a plus, but it certainly is far, far, far from an answer. Because greening can go undetected for two years, and because of canker/hurricanes a clean disease tree coming out of a screen house, has a very high chance of disaster. Skeet, I'll agree with you and will back off somewhat about the quality of enforcement that Florida is doing to protect the citrus industry. In my humble opinion the only two options to Florida is to find a cure for greening and canker, or develop resistant trees, and no other options are open to them. No place in the entire citrus producing world, has greening been sufficiently dealt with. Just my opinion. - Millet

I've read somewhere that there were very promising mandarin hybrids developed by the USDA that are resistant to greening or remain productive with quality fruits even if infected with greening.

Was wondering if there's additional info on these.

Also, I have reported earlier about a citrus farmer who have greening infected trees that show no decline nor reduction of fruit quality by applying his own regimen of salicylic acid and nutrient boosters. Many teams of scientists visited his farm and perhaps scientific field trials are being done to validate his practices. And so it will take a lot of time for the results to come out in scientific literature.

And scientific research is at times worse than government bureaucracy when it comes to publications. My very first internationally peer reviewed scientific publication was submitted while I was second year in college, but it came out in Agronomy Journal after I graduated. Takes 2 to 5 years before they get published.

That is why I prefer the internet. If one of the credible citrus guru tried this and that, then I will try this and that and get my own validation within a couple of seasons. This is where we rely on each other's trust. Of course when there are conflicting results, it is just an opportunity to learn more to find out the intervening factors.

But this is no way to discount the way the current scientific community go about their institutionalized ways. After all, it really takes time for various scientific peers to review submitted articles, and there is no way around it. The only thing different now is the speed of information exchanges between researcher, publishers and reviewers. Still, doing the experiment and reviewing the articles takes a lot of manual time that we can't get away with. The only thing we save is that publishing and distributing knowledge is now instantaneous.

Anyway, so much for those ramblings. I do hope that the US will develop better varieties that could help weather through the greening epidemic. There are known cultivars that are quite resistant to citrus greening.

Millet, I know there is no known cure for greening, the screenhouse requirement with positive outward airflow requirement is designed to prevent infection of plants with greening in the nursery by preventing contact with psyllids. I believe the treatments required by Florida before nursery plants are moved to point of sale and exposed to open air are intended to provide some "downstream" protection from infection by psyllids. All citrus plants sold at garden centers here in FL have inspection and treatment tags on them.

They should include a quarentine tag or a notice at point of sale--that would not cost much and would go a long way toward educating out of state tourist and at least keep honest people from making mistakes.

Joe, you are right about the scientific publication process, it can be long and tortuous. I had over 70 publications when I retired. And sometimes the better the journal, the longer it takes. The fast way to get information out for me was at scientific meetings-- then you can meet with the people and discuss findings--usually at about the same time you are submitting to journals.

The internet was a great way to fine publications and order reprints--especially when I had access to the scientific databases like current contents at my desk.

It is difficult to get accurate estimates of yield losses from HLB disease (citrus greening) in a perennial crop such as citrus. However, infected branches produce little or no marketable fruit. Experiments in South Africa to rejuvenate HLB infected citrus using tetracycline injection have reported increases in yields of up to 140% - Millet

Thanks Millet, that is another treasure gem of an information.

The South African strain of greening is different from the Asian strain present here in the US

Hopefully, they can be treated in similar way.

In today's technology, we can grow algae so that they produce Tetracycline, Salicylic acid or other medicines. We can then use them to treat infected citruses, without having to do the expensive refining process that usually is required for intake by humans.

All I can say is, Laaz and Skeeter sure are diplomatic, and nice. I probably would have tried to rip that guy a new one.
I only started growing citrus last year, and it took me probably 3 days to learn about the Citrus ban. It seems fishy to me that someone from Arkansas just happened to pick up what, 3 or 4 varieties? in FL. How did he bring those big plants home? Not much room in the car ...
I think it was on GardenWeb that a lady posted that she had gotten a call from the USDA. She bought a citrus plant from florida on ebay, and the feds were coming to get it. She was in a panic because she thought they would take all her plants. It ended up that they just took the citrus tree and gave her a warning.
People like that guy in AR get me so mad! People like that put us all at risk. I think we're lucky citrus can still be sold and shipped from some places, I can forsee a future of no inter-state sales at all, can't you?