Bayer Joins Fight Against Citrus Greening Disease
August 16 2017 - 7:29AM
Dow Jones News
By Arian Campo-Flores
Florida's battered citrus industry is gaining a new partner in
its decadelong fight against a disease ravaging the state's groves:
the German pharmaceutical and chemical giant Bayer AG.
The company plans to announce on Wednesday a three-year research
agreement with the Citrus Research and Development Foundation, a
nonprofit created by the Florida citrus industry. The partnership
aims to develop new ways to combat citrus greening, an incurable
bacterial disease that depletes trees and can cause fruit to drop
to the ground prematurely.
The foundation assembled $12 million in funding from citrus
growers and companies including Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc.,
which are big buyers of Florida citrus for their juice brands.
Bayer will dedicate 12 researchers to the effort, a library of more
than 1 million chemicals and formidable lab resources. If it finds
potential treatments, the company will further develop and
commercialize them.
"Without advanced tools to control citrus greening, the citrus
industry in Florida could be out of business within 10 to 15
years," said Adrian Percy, head of research and development at the
crop-science division of Bayer.
Florida growers are projected to produce 68.7 million boxes of
oranges in the year ending Sept. 30, down 53% from the 146.7
million boxes five years earlier, according to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's July forecast. Land devoted to citrus in the state
declined 19% to 437,000 acres in the past nine years, according to
the Florida Citrus Mutual, a marketing cooperative.
Tom Jerkins, president of Premier Citrus, which has more than
20,000 acres of citrus groves in Florida, said he is hopeful about
the research pact. His company has lost 30% to 40% of its citrus
acreage and faced a 30% to 50% increase in costs in the past decade
as a result of greening, he said.
"What this agreement allows us to do is engage the powerful
industrial, analytical assay skill" of Bayer, Mr. Jerkins said.
"This is a very big deal for us."
The citrus industry accounts for 45,000 jobs in Florida and
economic activity of $8.6 billion, according to the Florida Citrus
Mutual. The state provides most of the oranges used for juice in
the U.S.
"With this increased focus on research, we are ensuring the
quality and consistency of our fruit supply," said a representative
for Coke, whose brands include Minute Maid and Simply Orange and
which contributed $500,000 to the Bayer collaboration.
"The greening issue is a serious global threat, and we want to
ensure the survival and competitiveness of Florida's citrus
growers," said a representative for Pepsi, which owns the Tropicana
brand.
Greening, also known as Huanglongbing, has been a maddening foe
for the citrus industry. The bacterium is transmitted by an insect,
the Asian citrus psyllid, which injects it into the tree's vascular
system. The disease hinders the flow of nutrition in the tree and
slowly starves it.
Growers have explored a range of methods to fight greening. Some
have employed intensive spraying to try to reduce the psyllid
population, without much success. Researchers are investigating
so-called RNA interference, a biological process that could disrupt
the psyllids' genes and affect their reproduction. Another program
involved unleashing an Asian wasp that attacks the psyllid.
Other efforts focus on battling the bacterium. For the past two
years, growers have been able to use three approved bactericides to
reduce the level of bacteria in trees, said Harold Browning, chief
operating officer at the Citrus Research and Development
Foundation. Researchers also are studying different varieties of
citrus trees to determine which might be more-tolerant of greening.
But deriving a truly resistant plant is at least five to 10 years
away, Mr. Browning said.
Bayer's work will focus on testing thousands of biological
agents and chemical compounds to identify those that might either
attack greening bacteria or bolster trees' defenses, Mr. Percy
said. The lab work will be conducted in Bayer facilities in West
Sacramento, Calif., and either France or Germany. The aim, he said,
is to have candidates ready to test in groves within two to three
years.
Write to Arian Campo-Flores at arian.campo-flores@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
August 16, 2017 08:14 ET (12:14 GMT)
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