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What killed the Florida orange?

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Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#111

Post by xenadu02 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #38
pjc50 wrote: post #15

This reminds me of the collapse of the Gros Michel banana variety, also due to disease. Near-100% loss of a food crop, even a luxury one, is an alarming thing to see though. (I was wondering if climate change would be mentioned, but that doesn't seem to be critical there yet. Starting to be noticed in European grape terroir.)

Did this banana have seeds!? I've never seen one, but it looks awful. They were actually good?

Most edible bananas are seedless and most cultivars (human grown) bananas are genetic mutants with triploid chromosomes (though a few are tetrapolid or diploid). Getting them to produce functional reproductive structures at all let alone viable seeds is very difficult. There are ongoing efforts to cross-breed with their wild cousins and to preserve genetic diversity.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#112

Post by slibhb »

acdha wrote: post #103
tgarrett wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The areas they grow the oranges never used to get hurricanes. That's not correct: we have good data going back to 1851: https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/hurdat/All_U.S._Hurricanes.htm... Search for "FL": hurricanes have been hitting Florida frequently for the last 175 years.

That's not the point being made: the article clearly states that those areas did not previously get hit by storms at this level. Climate change is making hurricanes stronger and wetter, so even though they've been a phenomenon for as long as humans have lived there that doesn't mean that the frequency of damaging storms over an area can't change in a way which makes it worse for agriculture. There's an inflation-adju…

Hurricanes do more dollars in damage because we're richer and there's more capital near the coast.

The idea that climate change caused hurricanes which spread insects is not impossible but seems unlikely. I don't think the statistical methods exist to prove it.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#113

Post by ggm »

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #80
SoftTalker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What caused this in Hawaii?

Sugar cane required annual burning of the fields, which became really unpopular. That and labor practices. They still grow millions of pineapples

That cropping technique had been superseded by no burn methods. They're used extensively in Queensland Australia. It's called "green harvesting"

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#114

Post by United857 »

catlikesshrimp wrote: post #91
danso wrote: post #2

gift link: https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food...

I have to disae javascript to read the article. The article was submitted to the internet archive and, surprisingly, I also had to disable javascript there https://web.archive.org/web/20260420211512/https://slate.com...

https://archive.ph/ZnfSC

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#115

Post by jibal »

zdragnar wrote: post #101
treis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe parts of Florida never got hurricanes until recently?

To be charitable, they merely pointed out what the article said, even if it is obviously, objectively false.

It's not objectively false, people just can't read.

> the high-caliber hurricanes that, before climate change, didn’t come to the Ridge

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#116

Post by SoftTalker »

lightedman wrote: post #67

The Florida Orange was NEVER the Florida Orange to begin with. Of note from the story: "...because it came from China, where oranges also came from in the first place." Technically yes but also no, what we have for the modern navel orange came from a mutation that happened in Brazil in the 1800s - 200 years after its introduction from China. The parent trees for literally the entire navel orange (aka Florida aka Sunk…

FWIW, "navel" oranges are grown for eating, not for juice. People prefer them because they are easy to peel and they don't have seeds.

Juice oranges have a tougher, thinner rind that doesn't peel easily, and they have seeds. But they have better taste and more juice than navel oranges.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#117

Post by airstrike »

SoftTalker wrote: post #34
cratermoon wrote: post #27

Sugarcane and pineapple used to be the biggest agricultural products in Hawaii. Now they're gone.

What caused this in Hawaii?

The history of Hawaii, the Dole family and pineapples is worth a documentary. I'm sure one must already exist

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#118

Post by calebh »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #38
pjc50 wrote: post #15

This reminds me of the collapse of the Gros Michel banana variety, also due to disease. Near-100% loss of a food crop, even a luxury one, is an alarming thing to see though. (I was wondering if climate change would be mentioned, but that doesn't seem to be critical there yet. Starting to be noticed in European grape terroir.)

Did this banana have seeds!? I've never seen one, but it looks awful. They were actually good?

You can buy a Gros Michel banana from Miami Fruit, although they are quite expensive (almost $40 for a single banana). There are reviews of the banana on YouTube as well - I highly recommend the Weird Explorer channel if you want video reviews of all sorts of strange fruit.

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#119

Post by pg_bot »

pjc50 wrote: post #15

This reminds me of the collapse of the Gros Michel banana variety, also due to disease. Near-100% loss of a food crop, even a luxury one, is an alarming thing to see though. (I was wondering if climate change would be mentioned, but that doesn't seem to be critical there yet. Starting to be noticed in European grape terroir.)

A similar thing happened in France in the 1850s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_French_Wine_Blight

Re: What killed the Florida orange?

#120

Post by renewiltord »

pjc50 wrote: post #15

This reminds me of the collapse of the Gros Michel banana variety, also due to disease. Near-100% loss of a food crop, even a luxury one, is an alarming thing to see though. (I was wondering if climate change would be mentioned, but that doesn't seem to be critical there yet. Starting to be noticed in European grape terroir.)

This banana has reached mythical banana status because of rarity. The flavor of various tropical bananas is way better. Both Taiwan and India have many varieties substantially better tasting than Gros Michel.
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