Whether you take it with pulp or without, you may soon be lucky just to get some OJ at all as one of the largest citrus industries in the world suffers a massive collapse.
According to a bombshell new story in Slate, Florida’s once-proud orange groves have experienced a major decline in fruit production over the last few years, and the devastation is almost certainly just getting started.
While there are plenty of reasons for a downturn in orange production — climate change, Donald Trump’s trade wars, suburban development — perhaps none are as ravaging as citrus greening disease, a bacterial infection that slowly chokes orange trees from the inside out.
Citrus greening disease is primarily transmitted by a sap-sucking bug known as the Asian citrus psyllid. Once the psyllid starts gnawing on a defenseless orange tree, it’s pretty much a done deal; the tree’s leaves become yellowed and flaccid, and its fruit wilted and green. As the University of Florida notes, “there is no cure for citrus greening.”
When Slate sent a reporter to canvas industry researchers and citrus farmers about how many of Florida’s orange trees were afflicted with the devastating bacteria, their answer was unanimous: 100 percent of the state’s orange trees are infected.
“It could spread to the whole Gulf Coast,” USDA agricultural researcher Clive Bock told Slate. Given the state of the outbreak, it’s entirely possible greening disease heralds the total collapse of Florida’s orange industry over the next few years.
In 2023, Florida produced 242 million 90-pound boxes of oranges. For the 2026 harvest season, the US Department of Agriculture estimates Florida’s orange groves will put out just 12 million boxes, the state’s worst output in over 100 years. As Citrus Research and Development Foundation COO Rick Dantzler told attendees at the 2026 Florida Citrus Show, it’s already “been a dumpster fire of a year.”
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The post You’ll Spill Your Juice When You Learn How Many of Florida’s Orange Trees This Incurable Bacteria Has Already Infected appeared first on Futurism.
