Sorry to say it's worse than it was when your first tree died. Growers now consider it a management issue... Not one of prevention.

UF and a couple of other folks are working on breeding or engineering varieties that are immune to the disease. I seem to remember they found a spinach gene that conferred immunity? It's been a while since I looked into it so I'm fuzzy.

Bottom line, if you put a new tree in, you'll get a few years to enjoy it before it starts to decline from either greening, or canker. With how much they cost, it's not worth it.

HLB is still uncontrolled. The commercial groves are surviving by frequent foliar nutrient sprays to make up for the lack of root transport. It buys the commercial grower a few more years of production. It does not cure it. HLB has now spread to Texas and California, in spite of the federal quarantine of Florida trees

It was reported that they are testing an engineered citrus that is resistant/immune to HN1 in Southern Florida. Engineering is probably the only hope for continued citrus growing in the near future. It will probably be years before the regulators and litigators allow the trees into production.

The only other hope for a resistant tree is to find surviving trees among the dead ones. There may be a natural mutation that confers resistance, but I haven't heard of any concerted effort to find such trees among the many abandoned orchards.

Replacing your grapefruit tree is a gamble, it may survive long enough to fruit, but maybe not.

There is a trial going on where they tent the tree in plastic for a day to raise the temperature. This may be a option for the home owner but not the groves. When I spoke with the local extension agent he suggested trying something other than citrus for a while.

You can thank the global economy for this plague...

Craig

This is the saddest thing to ever happen to the Florida citrus industry. The numerous freezes that wiped out whole orchards were bad enough, but you can come back from that. You can't come back from this, and once all the trees are dead, what will those horrid bugs go after next?

dirtygardner et all : I must agree, an almost unreal slap in the face ! I was late to the gardening feasts of South Florida, having only discovered the great taste of those Ruby Reds in early 2009. Then, after enjoying four lush, bountiful harvests, collecting a small group of snowbird converts along the way, ( couldn't buy a drink anywhere after they arrived in town ), - it all ended so suddenly for us all in the fall of 2012 ! Was like a bad dream that we were anxious to awaken from.

Hope still springs eternal, but not holding my breath in this case ! Thanks again for the insightful blurbs.

Florida Grower magazine has articles each month on this issue. It may be interesting reading for you

My Rio Red is kaput as well - we finally gave it up & cut it down. I understand that grapefruit is more susceptible to the disease than some of the other citrus.

I know how to cure citrus greening. Its a pity that nobody is willing to do what it takes. The asian citrus psyllid needs to feed from an infected tree in order to spread the disease. This insect only lives for 90 days. If we take down every single citrus tree in the state, infected and healthy, all of them, there will be nothing left to infect any more psyllids. Wait 90 days for them all to die off, and then replant everything with trees that have been grown in a controlled environment without that insect present.

I know, its sounds expensive and horrible. But after 90 days it would be OVER. Instead we've been chasing our tails for 10 years while everything dies around us.

Have you ever tried to herd cats? That's the image that comes to mind in reading Audrey's post just above. I agree-it would be great to be able to accomplish this, but we, as a species don't even cooperate enough to put our trash in a trash can-when one is provided! How on earth would we get the coordination and cooperation required to extirpate every citrus tree in Florida?!?

+oM

Eh, give it a few more years and there won't be too many citrus trees left to destroy save for whats left of the commercial groves. Six months ago I asked about citrus greening in duval county (north florida) and how much of an issue it was considered and the response was something along the lines of yes its present but nothing to worry about. Last week I asked the same question and the response was "extremely widespread."

I have a grapefruit and an orange in my backyard that must be 30 years old, they're huge. I find them to be fairly incredible because they tell me I'd need to do all this stuff if I wanted to plant citrus, water it, fertilize it, build it a little house in the winter, prune it so I can keep cold protecting it year after year etc. Those trees have been completely and totally ignored for at least 10 years. They sit out there covered in frost growing in sand that weeds dont even do well in and couldn't seem to care less. Total negligence has done absolutely nothing to threaten the fruit explosion that happens every December.

My parents who live in NY have been calling me weekly since May asking if I can send them more grapefruits yet since they don't like pesticides and won't eat supermarket fruit anymore. (Unfortunately they apparently also don't understand growing seasons.)

Last week I noticed yellowing on some of the leaves. I'm sure they have a ton of nutrient deficiencies but some of the yellowing appears to be not quite symmetrical so now I am afraid they are sick. And I am afraid to find out because if they are I'll need to take them down to protect the neighbors lemon tree which appears to be just as old and negligence tolerant. If they are sick, I don't even know how to tell my parents that I won't be sending them any more organic/wild grapefruit.

These are the only three citrus trees I am aware of within several miles of me. (Jacksonville is a little bit on the cold side) If it's gotten to me, its everywhere. Only the commercial growers will still have trees sooner or later. Then there will be a lot less cats to herd

If you removed the all citrus and waited years to replant the bug would find a way back. Unfortunately this will run the same coarse of the Dutch Elm disease and now Laurel Wilt disease.

Thats one of things I found interesting. I don't believe it would. The Asian Citrus Psyllid was first found in Florida in 1996. People were worried about citrus greening which is a well known issue in other parts of the world so they went crazy testing the bugs. The population of insects in Florida was completely harmless, they were not a carrier for the disease. It didn't become a problem until some genius brought a piece of an infected plant over from asia. So after being completely innocuous for 10 years, they suddenly became a major problem. They were only a threat after we got them sick. California has had psyllids for years too, but no citrus greening until the two cases they just found now. If there are no infected trees around to infect the insects in the first place, then the insects don't spread disease.

Think of the bubonic plague. It was spread by rats and fleas. People stopped getting it left and right even though the flea and the rat population never dropped. You can't kill ALL the rats and fleas any more than you expect to kill ALL the citrus psyllids. What happened is, everyone died and there was no population of sick people left alive to infect new rats and fleas. No more people, no more sick rats and fleas to spread it to new people, no more bubonic plague. But still plenty of healthy rats and fleas.

No more sick trees means no more sick insects, which means no more citrus greening.

My wife and I were walking through Circle B Bar Reserve here in Lakeland today and saw many many grapefruit trees looking very good with fruit on them.. We even ate some and they were pretty good.. I've never said that before as I've only ever tried store bought grapefruit and hated it. There were oranges as well and a tangerine all growing wild inside an old oak forest. These trees are growing in much shade but some of them must be at least 20 years old judging by the size of 20-25ft... Wonder if there is some beneficial bacteria or fungus in the soil of that forest that has kept them healthy? If so maybe I'll get a bag and innoculate the soil around my very young citrus trees which fine at the moment.

There may be hope after all - heard this awhile back on our local NPR affiliate, WUSF:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/12/04/503183540/after-a-sour-decade-florida-citrus-may-be-near-a-comeback

thank you for posting the link, I had been wondering what the state of the citrus greening was. I 'm glad there s some hope... Tks UF...

It is highly unlikely that that there is something in dirt that can stem HLB. It also does not seem that natural selection is going to give us resistant root stock either. Other parts of the world have been fighting this for much longer and no one has found an immune tree yet. But there is some progress. Citrus Gardens has been field testing modified trees under permit from the EPA. I haven't heard any negatives yet, so we should see application for production. The neighbors across the street had to cut their orange down this spring and there are steadily fewer citrus trees in the neighborhood.Recent article ---
GMO Citrus

Had I known about this I would not have bought the orange and grapefruit trees (1 of ea.)

http://www.growingproduce.com/citrus/varieties-rootstocks/florida-citrus-connecting-the-dots-on-promising-new-selections/

http://www.growingproduce.com/citrus/varieties-rootstocks/florida-citrus-breeders-squeezed-for-time/