Sep 30, 2002 3 min read

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) – Florence Williams knew her trees had to be chopped down, but tears welled up as she watched the branches her son once used as a playground come crashing to the ground. Just a few weeks earlier, brown and yellow blemishes appeared on the 20-year-old orange and grapefruit trees, a telltale sign of citrus canker.

State officials have waged a war on the bacterial disease, chopping and burning more than 2 million trees over the last seven years in an effort to protect Florida’s $9.1 billion citrus industry. The eradication effort hasn’t been easy.

They blame residents’ resistance and legal challenges to the program for furthering the spread of the disease, which has reached 14 Florida counties, blanketing most of central and South Florida.

“The judicial decisions that we’re operating under now are very cumbersome, very inefficient and not the least bit thorough,” said Mark Fagan, spokesman for the state’s canker eradication program.

Florida’s biggest challenge has been convincing residents to give up healthy trees that are within 1,900 feet of an infected tree.

Homeowners fighting to spare trees that they love for their shade and fruit have found a champion in Circuit Judge J. Leonard Fleet, who imposed restrictions on tree eradication and ruled that the 1,900-foot directive is based on unsound science and unconstitutional.

When the state secured a mass search warrant this summer and started entering hundreds of back yards with sheriff’s deputies in search of canker, Fleet ordered them to stop.

The judge said they were violating homeowners’ rights and acting “against the Constitution.” State officials have appealed.

Canker doesn’t harm humans but weakens trees and causes them to drop their fruit prematurely.

No one has documented how canker made its way to Florida, though experts speculate it was transported in the early 1900s from China, where the bacteria was endemic. It was first seen in 1910 by a man in north Florida who noticed brown spots covering the fruit on his orange trees.

The disease spread quickly, fueled by wind and rain, and reached Miami by September 1912. It took the state and citrus industry 20 years and the loss of more than 3.3 million trees to wipe out the infestation. Since canker surfaced again in Miami-Dade County seven years ago, more than 600,000 backyard trees and 1.5 million trees in commercial groves have been chopped down, burned or turned into mulch. State lawmakers voted to offer compensation – a $100 voucher at Wal-Mart for the first tree and $55 for every additional tree.

The disease has cost the citrus industry millions of dollars, and the canker continues to spread.

In early July, the disease was found on a grapefruit tree in Orlando, marking the northernmost reach of the disease.

Agriculture officials say the summer’s windy, stormy conditions propel the spread, but a bigger challenge is preventing people from transplanting trees from quarantined areas into their own back yards.

Williams, who lost her only backyard citrus trees last week, said she understands the rules but is sad to see her trees go.

“They were good trees. We planted those trees after we had our house built and they grew up with my son, grew along with all the boys in the neighborhood,” she said.

“I’m very sad about it,” she said, “but I wouldn’t like for the disease to spread and kill anybody else’s trees. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

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On the Net

Gulf Citrus Growers Association: http:/

embers.aol.com/gulfcitrus

ndex2.html

Citrus Canker: http://www.ceris.purdue.edu

apis/pests

c/