The Agriculture Department awarded $53 million for research to help growers combat citrus greening, a devastating plant disease, and to search for a way to prevent it. First detected near Homestead, Fla., in 2005, and now present throughout the state, the bacterial disease causes fruit to turn green after ripening. Infected trees decline in condition and rarely bear usable fruit. Citrus greening was confirmed in Southern California in 2012. Also called Huanglongbing, the disease has reduced citrus production in Asia and Africa.
The USDA money will support 22 projects that range from training dogs to detect newly infected trees to finding ways to kill the insect, the Asian citrus pysllid, that spreads the disease. Other projects will seek ways to help citrus trees fight the disease and to develop trees with a natural resistance to citrus greening.