Working toward rapid, inexpensive, environmentally friendly cures for HLB/citrus greening
The most costly project of the group created to save Florida citrus farmers has been a wasteful disaster. It produced nothing, wasted un-recoverable time, and allowed the HLB citrus greening disease to spread. Even worse, after three years and $12.3 million, the Citrus Research and
“We’re surrounded,” an Arizona Department of Agriculture official says about citrus greening. The disease, also called HLB, “has already decimated citrus groves in the other major citrus-producing states of Florida, California, and Texas,” the Arizona Republic reports. “Once you have it,” says Arizona citrus farmer
The State of Florida is expected to provide about $8 million in appropriated taxpayer funds to the controversial Citrus Research and Defense Foundation. We think that the state should wait until CRDF under Rick Dantzler cleans up its act. CRDF has what many citrus farmers
In just two days, more than 3.5 million people saw the Sun-Sentinel article about how CRDF has prevented large-scale testing of an inexpensive, off-the-shelf fertilizer that shows signs of helping citrus trees infected by HLB disease. This count relates only to people who saw the
For three years, the CRDF has been paying millions of dollars to a German multinational with no results to show in the fight against citrus greening. Now CRDF is hoping for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to give it another $8 million this year, while failing
“In 2009, the Citrus Research and Development Foundation, Inc. (CRDF) was formed to coordinate citrus research funding in the face of huanglongbing (HLB, also known as ‘citrus greening’),” the CRDF says on its website. “While it addresses the full array of citrus research needs, CRDF
“We don’t really have any nutritional guidelines for citrus because everything on citrus was written before HLB,” says Lorenzo Rossi, a root biologist at the Indian River Research and Education Center. “So the nutrient requirements now are completely different from the nutrients that citrus required
There might be a cure for citrus greening, says a columnist in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Here’s what the March 26 story says: “Part of the CRDF’s failure was its refusal for years to consider a potential rapid, low-cost solution repeatedly offered for testing. Instead,
The Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) is part of the problem, according to an op-ed in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “After spending $150 million in taxpayer- and industry-funded research to defeat HLB, CRDF has failed” to get any closer to saving Florida citrus from
We’re a group of friends in the Florida citrus business, and friends of Florida citrus growers and who have watched their groves wither away under the deadly HLB bacteria known as citrus greening. For years we’ve put our faith in the Citrus Research and Development