Citrus Growers Fear Fay Will Spread Canker

LAKELAND | Florida’s citrus groves appear to have escaped significant damage from Tropical Storm Fay on Tuesday, but the full damage may not be known for months, perhaps years.

Although winds from Fay were not strong enough to blow fruit off citrus trees and growers were able to avoid flooding from the storm’s rain, the biggest impact may be from the amount of canker bacteria it spreads across the state.

“Canker is spread through wind and rain,” said Andrew Meadows, a spokesman for Florida Citrus Mutual in Lakeland, the state’s biggest growers representative.

“This was a significant wind and rain,” he said. “Putting A and B together, we’re going to have to deal with canker.”

“I think we’re probably going to see a bloom of new canker infections,” said Mark Ritenour, an associate professor at the University of Florida’s Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce.

Canker is a bacterial disease that weakens citrus trees, causing a significant drop in fruit production, but does not kill them. It is harmless to humans and animals.

History is not on the citrus growers’ side.

Canker reappeared in Florida in 1995 in Miami-Dade County and subsequently spread to many areas, primarily in Southeast Florida.

Studies showed Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne in 2004 had spread canker to more than 100,000 grove acres in virtually every part of the state.

Until 2005, state and federal agriculture officials had hoped to eradicate the disease by cutting down infected trees and up to 250 acres of surrounding trees that had been exposed to the disease.

After Hurricane Wilma blew threw the state on Oct. 24, 2005, state and federal officials agreed the disease had spread too widely to be eradicated.

“The biggest concern is that the wind is going to spread canker,” said David Wheeler, a member of the Florida Citrus Commission and a Lake Placid-based grower.

“We’ve not had enough wind to do damage” to the citrus crop itself, he said.

Citrus trees are particularly vulnerable to canker this time of the year when they are sprouting young leaves and twigs, said Jay Clark, a Wauchula grower and former Citrus Mutual president.

But growers won’t likely know the extent of the canker spread until next year because lesions on fruit and leaves, the visible signs of the disease, often don’t appear for many months after initial infection.

Fay may turn out to be particularly bad news for growers in the Indian River area, the world’s largest grapefruit-growing region. The storm on Tuesday took an unexpected turn to the east into that area.

Grapefruit is the most susceptible citrus variety to canker.

In Southwest Florida, where Fay made landfall, growers reported little damage, said Ron Hamel, the chief executive of the Gulf Citrus Growers Association in LaBelle, which represents growers in Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties.

Reports for the association’s growers indicated rainfall of 7 to 10 inches and little wind damage, he said.

“They felt they could manage that amount (of water) over the next day or two. It’s not a threat,” Hamel said of the rainfall.

What little fruit blown off the tree happened along the borders in groves.

Data from the Florida Automated Weather Network’s Immokalee station showed average wind speeds topped out at 32 mph at 10 a.m. Tuesday with the biggest gust at nearly 52 mph an hour earlier.

The highest average wind at the Clewiston station reached 54 mph at 11 a.m. with gusts of nearly 67 mph.

By 5 p.m., winds had died down to 27 mph in Fort Pierce, 26 in Frostproof and below 20 mph in most other areas of South Florida, the network reported.

[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or 863-422-6800. Read his blog at citruspulpwash.theledger.com. ]