Page 65 - Meyer Lemon News Today

Back as promised tonight, with a huge threat to the florida citrus crop, especially oranges and florida oranges about three-quarters of the orange juice consumed in this country. the problem is a tiny insect killing off the fruit in record numbers. we get more on this tonight from nbcs mark potter. >> reporter: florida farmers are throwing everything they have got into a desperate attempt to keep citrus trees alive, but they are losing the battle against a deadly disease discovered here nine yea...

A $1.5 billion industry. temperatures here dropped to the high 20s last night and are expected to go even lower tonight and tomorrow night and growers here fear this cold snap could make their fruit unsellable. while the sun was out today, citrus growers rushed to pick as much fruit as possible before the cold canadian air descends on these grovings again tonight. if temperatures drop as low for as long as predicted they could lose half their fruit. >> if we lose 40% or 50% of our crop we wont h...

>> reporter: kelly grows a bounty of fruits, vegetables and herbs in her california backyard. >> this is cilantro. >> reporter: all by borrowing seeds from her local library. an old fashioned card catalog houses hundreds of varieties. rebecca newburnd the library three years ago. >> you can come and check out the tomato plants. >> reporter: its simple. and its free. >> we want you to plant them, grow them out and return the seeds for other people to borrow. >> reporter: its how people farmed for...

>> andrew meadows is with the trade group florida citrus mutual. >> i would say take a look at your glass-- eight-ounce glass in the morning and just imagine that not being there because thats how serious it is. >> reporter: pesticides kill the insect that carries the disease but there is no cure for trees infected with citrus greening. what is it like for you when you look at a tree that has this disease? >> well, first of all, i think about planting that tree. a lot of them i planted, and i th...

>> reporter: nick story has grown oranges in florida for 50 years, but now his 5,000-acre farm is under attack. this one is diseased. >> yes. >> reporter: how do we know that? >> we can cut across it, and we can see that the interior of it, the seeds in it are what we call dead and they will never mature. >> reporter: the culprit is citrus greening, a bacterial disease that kills orange trees by sapping nutrients. the insect came to florida with imported plant in 1998. the trees started dying in...

If the watered-down juice has a lower acidity, it wont activate baking soda to make flour rise. >> let me show you with a little science experiment. ive got two containers full of baking soda solution here. when i pour watered down lemon juice in, nothing happens. but watch what happens when i add pure lemon juice. wow. there it is -- that chemical reaction. >> reporter: lemon juice is just the latest. earlier this year, police arrested 19 people for passing off cheap vegetable oil as olive oil....

And now the supermarket confidential. a new investigation of some of those products on the grocery store shelves and their claims on the labels. is that bottle really all lemon juice? olive oil, honey. abcs elisabeth leamy reports tonight. >> reporter: you probably picture something like this when you see 100% lemon juice on a label, but you could be wrong >> unscrupulous companies decide, "hey, were going to save ourselves a lot of money, and were going to rip consumers off." >> reporter: the n...

>> pelley: some of the busiest workers in america are those who are changing the price signs at gas stations. theyre getting quite a workout. the national average is $3.72 a gallon, up 13 cents from just a week ago-- 24 cents a higher than a year ago. the italian cruise ship "costa allegra" is adrift after a generator fire off the coast of africa. more than a thousand people are on board in pirate-infested waters. this ship as the same owner as the "costa concordia" which ran aground off the coa...

Tonight from lakeland, florida. >> reporter: in central florida, citrus is huge. a $9 billion a year industry with 76,000 jobs. but now that industry is threatened by something growers can barely see. >> it can kill trees in up to two years. ill tell you what, growers are worried. >> reporter: the disease is called citrus greening. it disfigures the leaves, chokes off nutrients and makes the fruit inedible. >> it is the most serious issue we have ever faced. >> reporter: it is spread by this tin...

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