Rick Dantzler, chief operating officer of the Citrus Research and Development Foundation, addressed growers at the Citrus & Specialty Crop Expo, expressing optimism that citrus greening disease may eventually be overcome. He emphasized that in the meantime, growers require short-term strategies to maintain production.
Dantzler highlighted trunk injection of oxytetracycline (OTC) as one such measure. "This third year of oxytetracycline therapy is going to make a huge difference," he said. "Root mass is increasing. The leaf canopy is almost completely recovered. Those are precursors to more and better fruit. It's just simple plant physiology. That's how a plant works. It is absolutely going to make a huge difference this next year."
Research from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) indicates that OTC injections suppress the bacterium associated with huanglongbing (HLB), contributing to improvements in both fruit quality and yields.
However, Dantzler noted that OTC is only a temporary measure while longer-term solutions are pursued. UF/IFAS estimates that OTC trunk injection increases citrus growers' cost of production by about 7%.
"We know it's not a permanent solution. We have always thought that if we could get five to seven years' worth of therapy out of this, that's what we were going to need, and then hopefully the tree of the future is going to be with us," Dantzler said. "This next year is going to make a big difference. I hesitate to speculate about what the increase in production is going to be, but I think it's going to be huge."
Source: Citrus Industry
