(I was wondering if climate change would be mentioned, but that doesn't seem to be critical there yet. Starting to be noticed in European grape terroir.)
> Hurricanes turned out to be a vector for spreading the little winged bug. The wind carried the psyllid all over the state, dropping it off in hundreds of thousands of acres of groves.
> It was the perfect storm. And then, of course, there were the actual perfect storms, the high-caliber hurricanes that, before climate change, didn’t come to the Ridge: Irma, Ian, Milton, massive cells, all direct hits on the groves.
Have you ever had "banana flavor" candy that doesn't really taste like bananas? The flavoring is Isoamyl acetate, and I've heard suggestion that people called it banana flavor because it tasted more like Gros Michel. After switching to Cavendish banana the flavor name no longer made as much sense. Not sure how true it is though.
IIRC, there was actually a huge marketing push because people wouldn't each the current variety ?
PS - the old one didn't go 100% extinct, and you can get small numbers of them from specialty growers. Youtube has videos of people trying them (1)
* https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-we-should-br...
In the US the Interstate system helped reduce shipping and logistic costs across state lines, and so oranges became more prevalent and less 'special' post-WW2.
Granny Smith and Pink Lady were also considered treats when it came to apples, compared to the usual golden delicious or braeburn.
What did he think of all this, I asked him. What happened to the Florida orange?
“I think they killed it themselves, with chemicals. That’s a fact,” Gunther said. In my time in Florida, I’d found a more complicated story, but down here, everyone had their theories, their longing for citrus nirvana, and their anger at the loss.
“They sprayed so much chemicals, the damn grass don’t even grow here anymore—you can quote me,” Gunther said. “I knew it back in 1990. I said, ‘They’re sprayin’ so much chemicals it’s gonna be the end.’ And it’s the end.”
I'm also curious whether the bugs would survive if you cut down every orange tree in Florida, waited a couple of years, and then planted new groves.
I was just talking about the devastation that invasive species and diseases have caused not just in America, even though it’s most acute there in many ways, but also all over the whole planet. I don’t think people really have any understanding for just how decimated the planet is due to invasive species, arguably including the rapacious types of humans were have.
Orange are just a tiny little example of that; forest the farms devastated the natural ecosystems, then monoculture and pesticides destroyed native species, and now a disease from the old country is devastating the invasive oranges. Left behind will be what, more luxury condos?
Florida was a beautiful place not long ago, but a very peculiar and aggressively anti indigenous development is redefining it daily. Things have become so strange that squalid retention ponds qualify as wetland restoration.
I could rant for a while, but won't. Sarasota once produced more celery than possibly all states combined, and that helped us get through the Depression locally. But we sure did grow some oranges, and how wonderful the scent of orange blossoms are. It's something to behold.
Floridians deserve the results.
I will grant clemency for anyone who was born there and isn’t wealthy enough to move out.
I will grant 10x hate for anyone who moved there for the politics and complains about the results.
If Billy Bowlegs or Geronimo come back, I'll vote for them. I'd consider voting for someone who actually respected this place, but I'm not sure anyone does. I've been to nearly every state, and some other lands, but there's no place finer. I'm pure Florida man.
I'm a native too and I'll add a data point.
It's people who moved to Florida that voted the destructive operators into leadership positions, once they outnumbered the natives.
Ok, then you have the capability of leaving and haven’t. I judge you heavily.
Everytime I hear a southron bastard crow about secession I agree with them. Especially when I see the morons making up maps of the “national divorce” that give New England the gas fields of Pennsylvania.
I hope bugs bunny manifests into reality and cuts Florida off of the mainland.
Of note from the story: "...because it came from China, where oranges also came from in the first place." Technically yes but also no, what we have for the modern navel orange came from a mutation that happened in Brazil in the 1800s - 200 years after its introduction from China. The parent trees for literally the entire navel orange (aka Florida aka Sunkist orange) industry are in Riverside, CA, I see them every day driving to work. The now-deceased Queen of England used to get two boxes of oranges from those very trees every year.
They still grow millions of pineapples
I am halfway convinced that flavor wise frozen concentrated orange juice is "closer to the tree" than the "never concentrated" stuff. Nothing on fresh squeezed. But that is the price we pay to have a non-seasonal product.
Nothing like a fresh Florida orange, though. I used to know a secret tree in a public preserve that had the best oranges known to man.
I might drive down this winter and see if it's still there.
Simply is definitely the superior of their product lines.
You’re probably better off drinking cane sugar soda because it is more filling than HFCS soda.
Anyway orange juice is probably better still. At least it has some vitamin C and maybe trace fiber in it.
> However, given this study applied a heterogeneous ASB formula, it could not adequately consider the role of specific artificial sweeteners. Further research is needed to evaluate the potential effect of different artificial sweeteners and their doses on health.
But when you have nothing but the perfect host for the infection, in incredibly massive proportions as far as the eye can see, a little bacteria goes a long way.
Which can be even worse :(
