Saving Florida’s Oranges Starts with Soil
nationswell.com
nationswell.com
That’s one way. Having said that, citrus is a minor crop in CA. Only about 250k acres. That’s tiny compared to almonds and pistachios etc.
Home gardens have citrus and when they don’t spray, disease spreads. County extensions simply sent people out to detect spread and quarantined counties and restricted nursery sales between regions. This is one of the times that I am very proud of CA as USA’s highest grossing Ag state.
Having said that, it’s still a concern. No known remedy so far
I do agree that CA seems to be doing what it can to be combating the disease.
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/10/us/new-orleans-sinking-into-s... [1] https://www.urbanconservancy.org/project/fyi/
It's actually quite fascinating. I'm currently following a course created by Dr. Elaine Ingham, who is a microbiologist that studies soil biology and has done some really amazing research. She also worked at Colorado State University, which can't be a coincidence!
Here's the lowdown of what happens, because we've been getting this wrong for centuries in agriculture. The nutrients (N, Ph, Mg, K, etc) are bound to materials in the soil ranging from rocks to pebbles, to sands, silts and clays. We have been destroying the soil by tilling practices and large machinery which are creating compaction layers that lead to anaerobic conditions causing the "good" biology in the soil to die and also preventing roots from growing to the depth they need. It turns out that the way that the nutrients become available to the roots of the plant is by means of the bacteria/fungi breaking their bonds from the previously mentioned materials (rocks, etc) and then, even more interestingly, they get eaten by higher trophic level predators who shit out the nutrients in plant available form!
Some fun facts: - The roots release sugars (photosynthates) into the soil which attract particular bacteria/fungi based off its needs for nutrients AND pH requirements (bacteria release substances which raise pH and fungi acids which lower it, and the pH can vary on the scale of micrometers based off this)
-Bacteria and particularly fungi (if you haven't studied fungi, go watch Paul Stamets on Joe Rogan, cause they're incredible organisms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPqWstVnRjQ) create symbiotic relationships with the plant, each one feeding and protecting the other.
- Many tests which tell you your soil is low in nutrients can be complete bullshit. Extracting agents will yield different results, and if, for example, you're only looking at soluble nutrients, you're missing the fact that they're available but just bound up chemically and require the biological activity.
- dousing your soil w/ inorganic fertilizers are hardly short-term solutions because 1) if the soil has no structure to it, then they will wash immediately out with rain and 2) you're literally dissolving salts into the water of the soil, making the water unavailable to the plant and can stress the plants more. Sure, they might get a quick dose of nutrients but you're playing a losing game.
- there's a whole bunch of other stuff. Elaine's course available on www.SoilFoodWeb.com, it's a bit expensive, but I find it fascinating and I'm barely halfway past Ch 2. She basically gives you all the science behind it and the know-how of how to address the problem yourself, not rely on a product. She's a total G, it's really fun listening to her and hearing about the history of her research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Ingham
I'm not sure what this Rhizolizer brand is, but I presume it's not far off from a "tea" made from vermicomposting (i.e., you feed your compost to worms and they shit out a magical biologically rich and diverse "casting" which you can utilize to put the healthy biology back in your soil)