The Tropical Fruit Forum

http://www.thegrower.com/news/UC-opens-up-Lindcove-station-for-tours-of-citrus-285498871.html
Millet

The Selection Committee for The Florida Citrus Hall of Fame has announced three distinguished leaders will be inducted into the Hall during the 53rd Citrus Celebration Luncheon on Friday, March 6, 2015 at Florida Southern College in Lakeland.
 
Nicholas “Nick” D. Faryna (deceased), formerly of Umatilla, Fla., Sherwood J. “Buddy” Johnson, of Ft. Pierce, Fla. and John C. Updike, Sr. (deceased), formerly of Lake Wales, Fla. will be honored at the luncheon, scheduled to take place at 11:30 a.m. in the Hollis Wellness Center.

Millet
 

It is taken as a given that orange juice is good for you. But many people don't realize how good for you it is. Here are five ways that an 8-ounce serving of orange juice each day benefits your body:

NUTRITION: Orange juice is practically synonymous with vitamin C. But did you know that a serving of orange juice has about an entire day's worth? Orange juice is also a good source of vitamin A, thiamin, and folate, with 10%, 15%, and 19% of your daily values, respectively. And it is an excellent source of potassium, with 14% of your daily value for this mineral.
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CANCER PREVENTION: Orange juice is chock-full of antioxidants, which are thought to help prevent cancer. The antioxidants in orange juice include vitamins C and A as well as a chemical called hesperidin, which may have a protective effect against colon cancer.

HELPS WITH BLOOD PRESSURE: The antioxidant hesperidin is said to improve the health of the small blood vessels in your body, which can help regulate or reduce high blood pressure. Orange juice contains potassium, which also reduces the risk of high blood pressure. Keeping blood pressure within normal levels reduces the strain on your heart and reduces your risk of heart attack and stroke.

REDUCES INFLAMMATION: Low-level inflammation is believed to be a risk factor for developing insulin resistance, a major cause of type-2 diabetes. All citrus fruits and their juices have anti-inflammatory properties.

HELPS CHOLESTEROL BALANCE:Orange juice has been shown to reduce levels of low-density lipoproteins, the "bad" cholesterol. Keeping levels of bad cholesterol low helps prevent plaque build-up in your arteries and helps prevent heart attacks and strokes.

These are all wonderful reasons to enjoy a glass of orange juice regularly, but too much of a good thing can be, well, just too much. Orange juice has about 110 calories in an 8-ounce serving. Almost all these calories are from sugars, which means that orange juice has a high glycemic load and can cause fluctuations in your blood glucose levels if you drink a lot. But for most people, one glass a day is good and good for you.
Millet



 

NEW YORK (December 3, 2014) Wall Street Journal – Alico  Inc. said it is acquiring three Florida citrus producers, making the U.S. agribusiness one of the country’s largest suppliers of oranges.
 
Alico said it is paying about $363 million for orange producers that will boost the company’s production to 10 million boxes of oranges a year, close to 10% of Florida’s annual output.
 
The deals, which include almost 28,000 acres of land, come at a difficult time for the citrus industry in Florida, the top supplier of U.S. oranges and orange juice. A bacterial disease—citrus greening—has devastated production and driven up prices of oranges, hurting demand for orange juice. U.S. sales for the once ubiquitous breakfast beverage fell to the lowest level in at least 16 years in the season that ended in September, according to Nielsen data.
 
The largest acquisition is of Orange-Co LP, which includes 20,263 acres. Alico will pay $274 million for the company, financing the deal with debt and a $97 million sale of its sugar-cane assets. Alico grows citrus and sugar cane, raises cattle, and manages land in Florida.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/homestead/article4206833.html - Millet

Thailand agricultural experts gathered at Phrae province to study a new kind of pummelo that has a coconut-like fragrance. The group is ready to name it the “Viroon Pummelo” after the orchard owner. - Millet

http://www.growingproduce.com/citrus/two-new-citrus-cultivars-approved-by-ufifas/

Millet

 

Many people seem to have problems during the winter with their citrus trees. There is a phenomenon that affects citrus grown in containers know as Winter Leaf Drop (WLD), which is what happens to the trees during storage in winter quarters.  With the appearance of fall and a decrease in temperatures, the trees are brought indoors to protect them from freezes and frost damage. 

 Unfortunately, the most common recommendation freely given for storing the trees indoors is as follows:
"Give the tree as much light as possible, keep the medium moist, but never over water.  Let the medium dry out more than in summer.  Hold the tree at temperatures around 41 - 50 F (5 - 10 C)."

  If you have followed this advice and have had no problems, you are lucky because most people who did so had problems.  The trees start to shed leaves, leaf after leaf drops, and in spring, after the last frosts, when the trees are placed outside again, many trees have few or no leaves remaining on the limbs, twigs and branches.  The cleavage is often between the leaf petiole  and the leaf blade, the petiole remaining on the tree. Often the dropped leaf shows no chlorotic patterns or any other discoloration.  Our first thought is that Winter Leaf Drop was influenced by low-light conditions during winter times. But even with extra illumination Winter Leaf Drop continued.  Often, after bright, sunny mid winter days, more leaves are shed than after longer periods of less bright light.  So we tried to find out what might be the cause of Winter Leaf Drop.  We chose five lemon seedling trees, all about one foot high.  The seedling trees were placed in different locations with different conditions:

 1. The first seedling tree was placed in a cool and bright location at a south facing window, at temperatures around 43 -50 F (6-10 C).
2.The second seedling tree was placed in the same room, but at a north facing window.
3. For the third tree, we chose a temperate room with temperatures around 59 F (15 C).
4. The fourth tree was placed at the same temperatures but on a south facing window.
5. The last plant was placed in a warm room of 70 F (21 C) at a south facing window with extra illumination.

All trees were irrigated as needed, just to keep the root ball moist, but not wet and not allowed to dry out.  Only #5 was irrigated more regularly and fed evenly.  After winter we found that #1 shed nearly all its leaves. #2 dropped some leaves only, and the others had only lost some (fewer than five) or no leaves.  We found light may NOT be the factor causing WLD, so we thought about temperature. After a long discussion with citrus experts in Florida and Israel, it was found that temperature will cause WLD. The temperature tables from the book Biology of Citrus show that citrus stops root growth and root function if the soil temperature drops below 54.5 F (12.5 C).  Leaf activity will be reduced if the temperatures drops below 64 F (18 C).  Leaf activity means the full process of water evaporation for leaf surface cooling, energy transformation (photosynthesis) and starch reduction for building amino acids and other compounds for forcing plant growth and cell development.  Citrus controls its leaf temperature by evaporating water from the leaf blade.  This reduces the temperature even during hot periods and will maintain the leaf temperature at the optimum levels between 77 F (25 C) and 95 F (35 C).  But even on cold days the sunlight can heat up the leaf surface quite quickly to levels beyond the critical temperature of 54.5 F (12.5 C).  Photosynthesis itself works better in cooler conditions with high light radiation than in the warmer periods of the day, so most of the photosynthetic starch production is done in the morning before noon and less water is evaporated than during the afternoon.  Optimum leaf temperature for photosynthetic activity for most plants ranges from 50 F (10 C) up to 90 F (32 C). Photosynthesis itself  needs carbon dioxide, light and water to transform the carbon dioxide into starch and oxygen. During the night the starch will be oxidized to provide energy needed for plant growth and development. The whole process is called breathing. Water and nutrients for the breathing process must be taken up by the roots.  Oxygen and carbon dioxide will be delivered from the air around the plant, taken up by the leaf surface (and to some extent by other green parts of the plant) so leaf and root activity must run in a balance to provide the best plant performance for growth, flowering and fruit development.  If a citrus tree is stored at temperatures below 54 F (12 C) but gathers enough light for photosynthesis, this balance is broken.  The leaf activity requires water, which the roots cannot deliver.  The tree stops evaporation and water will be unavailable for cooling the leaf surface on bright days, so the tree reduces active leaf area by leaf abscission.  This seems to be the best theory about what causes WLD.

Partial or complete defoliation was never critical if the root ball was kept  a little more on the dry side, but if it was too wet, a quick root decline developed even if Poncirus trifoliata was used as a root stock.  Most of the trees recovered quite will in spring (if the roots stayed healthy and a heavy bloom was set).  But in recovering the whole canopy, often the trees used up much of their starch reserves in the stock, which did not fully refill during the short summer times.  After some years, many trees suffered, growth was stopped and the trees died because all of the starch had been depleted.  So what to do about WLD? Irrigation during wintertime seems to be a recommended practice to slow down WLD. Irrigation with warm water 77-90 F (25-32 C) supports the root function, even the water uptake, so WLD will slow down.  Irrigation reduces the plant stress during cold winter time and is therefore recommended.

 Keeping the trees in a room with high humidity seems also to slow down WLD but cannot prevent it.  Also a place more in the shade, to minimize  leaf activity, slows down WLD. Keeping the root temperature below 64 F (18 C) but at or above 59 F (15 C) seems to work best for stopping WLD.  The plant functions are minimized, but water and nutrient uptake for leaf activity is high enough to support the breathing process and leaf surface cooling by water evaporation.  If WLD persist, force the root temperature higher, around 70 F (21 C) this should stop leaf drop.  Sometimes during the winter, fruits dry out on the tree and drop if the tree is stressed too much.  So for fruit development and fruit maturity, higher temperatures and good leaf activity should be maintained.  Irrigation with a nutrient solution should be done even in winter.

 Hope this helps - Millet

Del Monte's product label claims that their 64-ounce container has 10 grapefruit, but our citrus test revealed only four would fit
 Del Monte makes the labeling claim that there are 10 grapefruit in its 64-ounce container of Sun Fresh Red Grapefruit. There is one problem, though: The 10 grapefruit claim is misleading — at best. In fact, if we were to put it on an accuracy scale of 1 to 10, we’d have to give it a 4.

TINA.org took a trip to the store this week in an effort to follow up on a tip about the issue from a reader. We checked out with the 64-ounce Del Monte container and 10 grapefruit.
 
Back at the office, we emptied out the contents of the jar and got to work peeling and segmenting the individual grapefruit, which we then dropped into the empty Del Monte container. After packing down the flesh of the fourth fruit, we could add no more. Six unpeeled grapefruit stood idly by.

The results of our citrus test closely mirrored those of a reader who said the Del Monte container could only hold five grapefruit when she put it to the test.

“Stating with emphasis and even highlighting the ‘Contains 10 Grapefruit!’ definitely seems to me to be false and misleading,” the reader wrote in an email. “I should have been getting one jar free with each one that I purchased.”
 
 While the pieces of grapefruit we deposited into the empty container were less meaty (but larger) than the “dismembraned” Del Monte pieces we took out, the original Del Monte jar held at least a couple cups of water with the grapefruit pieces. So the area gained by the larger “membraned” slices we put in was in effect offset by the removal of the liquid.

The reader said she bought Del Monte because she considered 10 grapefruit for the cost a “fair price.” Indeed, at the Connecticut grocery store where we made our purchases, the big container went for $7.99 while the loose grapefruit cost $1 each. Presumably, that’s a savings of a couple bucks — a nice markdown for one item on a grocery list.

But employ our citrus test and the savings turn into a loss.

http://www.dailycommercial.com/news/article_51d79fa0-f571-5169-9f83-53debc34be5e.html

Millet

Spinach has some defensins that provide resistance to the bacteria that causes citrus greening. What has been found is if genes that are in spinach is put into citrus we have citrus trees that are resistant to citrus greening. This could be the  best hope of defeating citrus greening which threatens citrus in Texas, Arizona, California and Florida.No other short term solution has been found. Every researcher in the world familiar with the disease h.as indicated that the ultimate solution will be bio-technology. Southern Gardens Citrus Growers, a major grower and supplier to many citrus juice labels including Tropicana, was one of the first growers with greening infected trees in Florida. It has since lost over 800,000 trees – a quarter of its groves. Citrus Greening the biggest challenge our industry faces right now. Citrus greening is in all 32 commercial citrus-producing counties in Florida. Before citrus greening, Florida was producing 242 million boxes or oranges. The most recent count this fall was 108 million boxes. The devastation has yet to bottom out since it takes as long as three years for the bacteria to kill a tree. In an unprecedented collaboration between the federal government, industry and researchers, work is happening on many fronts to limit the damage. Growers are watching hopefully as new trees infused with the spinach gene are growing in a government-controlled experiment. So far, the newly planted trees are thriving.
What we’re getting now with the latest work is true resistance. The trees don’t become infected at all with the bacteria. Then it has to pass the most important test of all. Will consumers be willing to buy orange juice squeezed from oranges containing a spinach gene?
Hawaii’s papaya crop was saved starting in 1998 when the plant was genetically modified to resist the domestic Ringspot virus which had been devastating the island’s crop.
Millet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnLEao4HmPI&feature=youtu.be

Millet

http://abc30.com/news/asian-citrus-psyllids-found-in-grove-near-exeter/384654/
Millet