How This Disease Could Wipe Out Citrus...Unless We Stop It 

It’s challenge to explain plant pathology in a classroom of educated students, never mind in a grocery store. If there was a list of academic topics for grocery education, it would include: GMOs (usefulness in fighting pathogens) and their labeling and how to actually read a nutrition label, at the very least.

All he heard was another challenge to his livelihood, and maybe a whisper of ivermectin. Good for you for sharing what you know, but he just wants to keep his business alive. When it shows up in his trade magazines it'll be real for him.

this is very true, and fear mongering video titles and statements like this video don't help.

@@jake-ip9vg Its definitely possible for food varieties to be wiped out, especially when many crops are monocultures and has already happened more than once. Pretending a problem doesnt exist doesnt help deal with the problem.

@@jake-ip9vghey so you know how banana flavoring has a different flavor than actual bananas? That flavor is from a variety of banana that is extinct because of disease (and mono cropping). It is not fear-mongering to raise such alarms.

All our neighborhood's citrus trees were removed by the county in the 80's because of the canker outbreak... now this :(

Is this the same as citrus "greening"? All our trees succumbed years ago, so sad!

@@CharGC123 Yep, same thing. It seems to have a few different names, prolly depending on where it is. From the USDA website: "Citrus Greening (Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus) is one of the most serious citrus plant diseases in the world. It is also known as Huanglongbing (HLB) or yellow dragon disease. Once a tree is infected, there is no cure. While the disease poses no threat to humans or animals, it has devastated millions of acres of citrus crops throughout the United States and abroad. Citrus greening is spread by a disease-infected insect, the Asian citrus psyllid (Diaphorina citri Kuwayama or ACP), and has put the future of America's citrus at risk. Infected trees produce fruits that are green, misshapen and bitter, unsuitable for sale as fresh fruit or for juice. Most infected trees die within a few years."

@@CharGC123 yup it is. If you want citrus, just plant a finger lime, they're immune

Right

I was also raised in SO CAL and remember my parents telling me that our house was built on top of orange groves and they had pictures of the area that would have been unrecognizable to anyone before the massive growth. Progress isn't very pretty at times.

Yeah, I can't imagine a world without Old Fashioneds

🤣🤣🤣@@apocalypse487

I think Jhonny Harris has covered bananas

Bananas have been covered pretty well thus far compared to avocados. I'd like to see a production from them on avocados

agreed. I enjoy the PBS channels because they're /not/ annoyingly clickbaity, but this title definitely is, and the videos not exactly on topic...

​@@twinsgardening896then why are you criticizing my criticism? This is another area where PBS Studios is falling down recently.

This is actually a MAJOR problem. Research from other sources if you don't trust this one, you will find the same story over & over. I think the "solution" they are suggesting here is pretty ridiculous, basically a huge win for chemical companies, a huge loss for everyone else, the best potential solution I've seen being discussed is looking for immunity options for the trees with grafting etc, finger limes being the most promising link in relation to that, since they are totally immune to it, to the point that if you use finger lime root stock, you can grow any citrus without the disease. Finger lime root stock is really not something you want to use!!!!!! so they're playing around to see what else they can do with genetics to get the benefits without the losses & it won't go to extinction, will just be pretty untenable to grow commercially, but some trees will still survive & give a couple of edible fruit each season

Considering how much is imported from China, and the tiny size of the insect, I don’t see how it could’ve been avoided without essentially closing our ports.

@@xsietube: The only way Asian Citrus Psyllid could've entered the country was on _infected plant material._ This isn't one little insect stowing away in cargo. The global trade in nursery stock and cut flowers is dangerous for agriculture and wildlife - profit for some, untold cost for everyone else.

@@damonroberts7372 exactly! Why is this so hard to grasp? As an Aussie, I dont' understand it! To us, bio-security is everything, we'd much rather spend on that than have to clean up the mess from letting diseases in! That said, Australian experts have actually said they consider this entering the country to be inevitable & are also setting up quarantines within the country to keep some plants protected from it for research purposes & are investing heavily in research now, in preparation for it's arrival, but to date it has certainly not arrived, due to proper bio-security. I don't understand why the US doesn't go down that path too! & PLENTY of live plants make their way into Australia btw, there's actually very limited restrictions on what can be brought in, there's a website "bicon" that can be used to check if seeds can be imported & if so, if any checks are required to do so, most don't need that. Live plants have to come from certified facilities in other countries, or spend time in quarantine facilities in Australia before they can be released into the community. Plants like orchids are grown overseas as standard for all supermarket sales ones, they're grown in certified facilities & are grown in sphagnum moss mostly, to avoid issues with soil/bark not being allowed in & they all just get a basic spray on their way in & are cleared effectively immediately because of the pre-import checks they're exposed to. No reason at all the US couldn't do the same thing, just a question of priorities, apparently the US doesn't mind destroying entire industries to save a few bucks short term. Crazy!

​@@damonroberts7372Unfortunately at this point, with how easy international shipping has become it's to late to stop the majority of the damage. When if ever will we learn that messing with nature is a REALLY BAD IDEA!!

Keyplex?

ffs what is wrong with your country? Why don't you use even basic bio-security at your borders? How can you get so many diseases through your borders? Sure, it costs billions to do border security properly, but it saves you trillions if you do it, so it's well worth the expense!

so do then :) They're a hugely popular plant to grow in Australia, cause they're really adaptable & fairly small & basically just the perfect home citrus plant - and they're totally immune to this disease! Not yet as easy to buy them in the US as it is in Australia, but it's getting easier & easier, so if you look, you can probably find both the plant & the fruit, the plant being the best option in most cases

I was thinking about this also. Or maybe even potentially a different type of bacteria, like trichoderma.

its indeed really sad and depressing how all that leaders do is talk, but never do anything to achieve set goals. Its so scary cause it literally impacts the whole world... ;(

The one thing the world came together on was the ban of CFCs to prevent the ozone from depleting. So it is possible to hope.

@@alkaliaurange Nope! Big nope!! The world addressed CFCs before social media came as a vehicle for conspiracy and denial. Now we have the far-right and alternative facts.

You know berries have vastly more vitamin C than citrus right?

The bacteria is the disease. The bugs transmit the bacteria from tree to tree. That is why all the trees are dying.

Probably not in the US, it doesn't seem to care about that sort of stuff. Australia doesn't have this disease, due to proper bio-security measures to stop it getting in, but Australia has been setting up large scale greenhouses basically in the middle of the desert, therefore far enough from any naturally growing citrus plants, that even if it gets in, those areas will be protected & a wide range of citrus plants are being grown in those facilities, so that there will always be virus free plants in existence (mostly so as to have them available for research purposes to combat this virus

It mean Vitamin C and Potassium 😢😮

WM professional? YT people?

That's plain funny lol

Loss of vitamin C 😢😮

Hello and thank you for the comment. We've now seen a few folks mentioning this, and we'll be making some adjustments for future episodes. Appreciate your feedback.

bio-security failin & letting it into the country in the first place is far more to blame!

It kinda does though? Level of wealth isn’t what dictates if an area is rural or not. Land use does. If your thinking is correct, then all of wine country where I live would not be considered rural even though we are an agricultural community.

Yeah, citrus is a 3.6 billion dollar industry and nobody thought of it. If you conjure up an easy or obvious solution and you’re not an expert, there’s probably something wrong with it. You aren’t smarter than everyone in the ag industry.

You know there is more to orange/lemon/grapefruit juice than citric acid right? Why would the tree bother utilizing and spending energy on a mind-numbingly complex metabolic pathway invested in fruit and juice production if they only needed to put citric acid into the mix? One doesn't just simply synthesize a complex biological product.

@@locomike1219 Cool story. Meanwhile, from the American Chemical Society: "Citric acid is a major industrial chemical, produced at >2 million t/year worldwide. Its main source is not from fruit, but from the fermentation of crude sugars (e.g., molasses and corn starch) by the mold Aspergillus niger."

@@locomike1219 You should really study a little chemistry before saying something this ignorant in the future, BTW. How do you think plants make stuff like citric acid in the first place? Or why do we humans produce acetone? (pro tip: It's chemistry)

@@aickSeems you cannot read. The flavors of citric fruits comes down to more than citric acid.

@@locomike1219 there are other pathways to creating Citric acid. Commercially, it is made from feeding sugars to black mold and then fermenting it.

supporting minorities isn't a dogwhistle. You're using that word wrong.

​@@twinsgardening896Lincoln sez: "It is better to remain silent and appear stupid than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." To those seeking truth: "Dog whistle" is using coded words and phrases to communicate with only a percentage of the population in a manner to influence them. Example: A quick, unnecessary shot unrelated to the narrative of a rainbow "Diversity" emblem from the desk of the somewhat obviously non-hetero interview subject. Sick of this from PBS Studios recently. "No Labels" means it really shouldn't matter. BTW, I have been raised in the SF Bay area and am an exceedingly tolerant Progressive Socialist.

@@SolaceEasy I'm really torn on this one, on one hand I feel like you, on the other, for those who have not heard that joke before, it's probably funny & enjoyable to them (if it doesn't go over their heads). The "diversity" in this setting was a biologist supporting diversity of bacteria - although the joke obviously has diverse meanings in this case (which is how it's usually used by biologists)

Don't lie, you're not an ally.