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  • NEWS FEATURE

Antibiotics set to flood Florida’s troubled orange orchards

A desperate plan to fight a citrus scourge has public-health advocates and scientists concerned.
  1. Maryn McKenna

    1. Maryn McKenna is a science journalist in Atlanta, Georgia, and author of the book Big Chicken, on antibiotic use in animal agriculture.

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A farm worker looks at a tangerine during harvesting at a grove in Fort Pierce, Florida

Citrus greening has been threatening Florida’s multimillion-dollar industry for more than a decade. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty

In the next month or so, orange trees across Florida will erupt in white blossoms, signalling the start of another citrus season. But this year, something different will be blowing in the winds. Farmers are preparing to spray their trees with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of two common antibiotics to combat citrus greening, a bacterial disease that has been killing Florida citrus trees for more than a decade.

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Nature 567, 302-303 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00878-4

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