Citrus greening costing the Florida citrus industry billions
Published:Saturday | March 10, 2012 | 12:00 AM
A WHOOPING US$3.83 billion and 6,000 jobs is how much citrus greening infestation has cost the American state of Florida since the disease was detected there in 2003-2004. Since then, the citrus industry, which is the second largest in the world (after Brazil), has gained a lot of experience and invested a lot of time learning to cope with the disease.
"After realising that it was all over the state, we realise that trying to eradicate it is like trying to eradicate citrus which is not practical, so we then looked at how to live with it," Paul Mears told The Gleaner yesterday.
He was one of the consultants who conducted a three-week course in the shoot tip grafting technique for local scientists at the Bodles Research Station in St Catherine.
The technique, which involves cutting the microscopic growing tip of a young shoot and grafting this to an incision in a toothpick-size seedling, has proven to be very successful in producing pathogen-free citrus seedlings. The project, being funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, is aimed at providing clean planting stick to resuscitate the local citrus industry.
Learn to live with it
First detected here in 2009, the disease, which is spread by an insect known as the Asian Citrus psyllid, now seriously threatens the viability of citrus. The only option for Jamaican growers, according to Mears, is to learn to live with it like Florida did, hence the reason for drawing on their expertise.
The economic impact of the disease on their industry, which sees most of the citrus being processed, was detailed in a publication by the University of Florida. Jamaica would do well to learn from that devastation.
Mears explains: "We have tried a number of things, including the removal of infected trees, to see if we can remove the innoculum from the groves. There is work being done on germ plasm but that is down the road. In the interim, most of our growers have to make the decision to stay productive and a lot of work has been done in studying the vector."