It can be challenging to be a Florida citrus grower and find optimism in today’s economic and production climates. After more than 20 years of dealing with citrus greening disease, it is understandable for growers to be downtrodden.
But one grower sees some positivity. Daniel Hunt, with Hunt Bros. in Lake Wales, was cautiously optimistic when discussing the future of the citrus industry at the recent Florida Citrus Show.
“I think we are definitely smarter growers than we were,” Hunt said. “Greening is far from being solved. You do feel some of your market is being eroded to other regions. As Florida has had its struggles, naturally your market’s going to migrate to other places. Getting that back is a challenge we’re going to have to overcome.
“Certainly, we’re better growers, but I think there are tools out there that have a lot of promise, but with a tree crop, promise doesn’t turn into answers for maybe five or six years.”
Continued patience must accompany optimism. Research with CRISPR gene-edited trees bred to be HLB-resistant doesn’t yield definitive results overnight. While research has shown potential, it remains in the early phase.
Hunt said CRISPR rootstocks from Soilcea have a tremendous amount of promise, but the trees are only three years old.
“I’d love to go look at an 8-year-old tree with Soilcea, but that doesn’t exist,” Hunt said. “You’re looking at a 3-year-old tree and thinking, it looks good now but is it going to look good at year eight? The only way to know is to wait a few years.”
Hunt was a panelist during the recent Florida Citrus Show in Fort Pierce that delved into Citrus Research and Field Trial (CRAFT) programs. He highlighted CRAFT’s importance to the state’s citrus industry and how growers benefited from the state legislature’s financial support of $100 million, “especially this past year with the money that was appropriated for it and the incentives that were put out there for growers. I think it was definitely a tailwind for growers wanting an excuse to plant trees,” Hunt said.
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