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Florida’s citrus industry could be in trouble as citrus greening could be a problem. (CREDIT: WINK News) An insect is devastating a historically fruitful industry in Florida. It’s called citrus greening. The insect stops the tree from getting water and nutrients from its root system which causes trees to produce smaller fruit. An Alva citrus farmer predicted his entire orange grove will be done in the next three to five years. A battle has been brewing between growers and the bug, barely half the size of a grain of rice. The Asian citrus psyllid feeds on the new growth of citrus trees, infecting them with a bacterium known as liberibacter. “Liberibacter lives in the phloem of the tree. You and I have veins and arteries, a tree has phloem and xylem,” said Rick Dantzler, COO of the Citrus Research and Development Foundation. “The bacteria blocks the phloem from inside the trees and keeps the nutrients from going up to the leaf down to the roots,” said Ron Mahan, CFO and VP of Tamiami Citrus. The end result is called citrus greening and it’s endangering Florida’s citrus crops. “Florida, as a state, our industry we used to produce between 200 to 242 million 90-pound boxes of oranges per year, most of that going into orange juice. This year, we produced less than 40 million boxes,” Mahan said. Knowing they had a problem, farmers formed the Citrus Research and Development Foundation in 2009. The goal was to find a cure. “We have funded 470 research projects and spent approximately $170 million,” Dantzler said. Nationally, $1.35 billion has been spent looking for a solution, to no avail. “There will always be a citrus industry of some sort in Florida, but the industry as we know it, where most growers are, are growing juice fruit. If we don’t turn the corner within a year or two, it is going to be very difficult for the juice grower to stay in business,” Dantzler said. Citrus farmers themselves help to fund research to prevent citrus greening. They used to pay 3 cents a box. In June, they voted to cut the box tax to 2 cents. Why? To protect their bottom line while they can.