Citrus Canker Found in New Florida Outbreak

Citrus canker, an incurable, highly contagious plant-killing disease that has forced the destruction of more than 8 million trees in the last year, has been discovered at a nursery in the first outbreak since April, officials said Friday.

An estimated 3 million citrus plants at the 60-acre Adams Citrus Nursery in central Florida, near Haines City, have been exposed to the bacteria and must be burned to prevent spread of the disease, officials said.

About 8.7 million citrus plants worth more than $24 million have been destroyed in Florida since August, 1984, when the canker was first detected.

Charles Poucher, director of the state’s citrus canker eradication program, said the recent discovery means a major threat to Florida’s billion-dollar citrus industry has not been wiped out. But he said the discovery at Adams Citrus Nursery Inc. was not unexpected.

“If it would have been any other nursery . . . I would be amazed, but we’ve been watching this one real close,” Poucher said in a telephone interview.

The nursery was being watched because another canker was found last year in a plant bed at a nursery about half a mile away. Poucher and other officials believe the two canker discoveries were related.

Poucher said that nursery owner Bill Adams estimated that 241,000 commercial citrus trees had been shipped from the nursery since June 15, when a quarantine on Florida nurseries was lifted. Workers will try to locate each of those trees, to control spread of the disease.

The quarantine was ordered after the disease, which poses no danger to humans, was discovered in 1984.