{"id":372407,"date":"2026-08-15T17:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T17:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/372407\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T17:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T17:40:09","slug":"florida-southern-joins-efforts-to-combat-citrus-greening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/372407\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Southern joins efforts to combat citrus greening"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAKELAND, Fla. \u2014 Florida Southern College<\/a> is joining the effort to help save Florida\u2019s citrus industry.<\/p>\n

Before Florida Southern was built, the land it sits on was home to acres of citrus trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of this was really a citrus grove, and when they built the campus, they retained some parts of those groves,\u201d said Michael Weber, dean of the FSC Barnett School of Business and Free Enterprise.<\/p>\n

Weber said citrus greening eventually devastated those groves. Now, decades later, the college has planted 45 new trees, including different citrus varieties and rootstocks. As part of a business science course, the new groves will serve as a living laboratory.<\/p>\n

Horticulture science professor Shea Keene said students will monitor each protective tent and collect data as the trees grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we\u2019re tracking the performance of these trees, we will share that information with local growers, with UF, they do a lot of citrus research as well, and really just anyone that can benefit from whatever we find,\u201d Keene said.<\/p>\n

The goal is to join the larger effort to help Florida\u2019s citrus industry fight citrus greening. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the disease has reduced Florida\u2019s citrus production by more than 90% since 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had well over a million acres of citrus, and were down well below 200,000 now,\u201d Weber said. \u201cBut this last year, we saw a little uptick again, so that\u2019s a good sign for the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weber hopes the college\u2019s research can help continue that forward momentum. Ultimately, he said it\u2019s about bringing the campus back to its roots while helping local growers restore what was lost.<\/p>\n

It will take about five years before\u00a0the trees start bearing fruit. Once they do, students will analyze the citrus for taste and visual appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAKELAND, Fla. \u2014 Florida Southern College is joining the effort to help save Florida\u2019s citrus industry. Before Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3204,23076,68229,767,274,28,30,29,115,139,1911,135,278],"class_list":["post-372407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-agriculture","tag-alexis-jones","tag-app-agriculture","tag-app-community","tag-app-top-stories","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-polk-county","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}