Comments by "Me Here" (@mehere8038) on "Why Florida Oranges Had The Worst Harvest Since World War II | Big Business | Insider Business" video.

As an Aussie, I really don't understand how the "world's richest country" is so appalling at bio-security. We don't have this in Australia, we've spend billions keeping it out, which is FAR more cost efficient than the financial losses that come from failing to prevent it entering the country in the first place. I just can't grasp why the US doesn't have a similar attitude
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Australia spends money on bio-security instead, which means avoiding this AND avoiding covid & other biological diseases & weapons. I actually find it horrifying the US doesn't do the same
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limes really aren't a problem, finger limes are an easy replacement plant for them. It's the oranges that are harder
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Citrus Australasica (finger lime) is completely immune, to the point that it's extracts can be used to treat affected plants of other species. It's the only one though
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@elderberryjamz3654 finger limes are so resistant that chemical compounds from them can be sprayed on infected trees to ki11 the bug on them
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All except Australia's native finger lime citrus plant
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@nitni0002 yeh, so can it's rootstock be used too? that seems like a much easier option than using it's extracted peptide to spray all the trees & obviously for limes, just outright switch to growing that instead
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@nitni0002 you'd think it would be logical wouldn't you (or at least I would) but who knows, with the way money works, they might have missed that to profit from the spray they're making. I would have thought Australia would have tried it by now though, given the work & money going into preparing for this disease's eventual arrival. Just doing a quick bit of research, they can be grafted to other citrus, but not much development of their rootstock & being rainforest trees, seems they probably don't do well in a lot of soils like heavy clay, but surely still better than the current status quo in Florida?
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while I don't believe polyculture can fix this issue, obviously mass monoculture makes it worse. In this case though, it's poor bio-security that's responsible, same as with covid & everything else & btw Citrus Australasica is most certainly a citrus plant & it's totally immune to this bug & disease
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sandy soils are fixed via adding carbon to them. Grasses that grow long would be best, as their roots go deep to access & hold water, then each year or so, bring in a mob of livestock to cut all the above ground grass off, process it & leave it on the ground to become soil carbon as the rain pushes it into the sand, while the roots sloth off & also become soil carbon & any grass trampled instead of eaten becomes mulch, keeping it all moist while this all happens. That's how you fix sandy soil, BUT those grasses also act as additional habitat for the bugs & help them move around on the farm, they don't stop that happening! Also, the alternative crop is finger limes, a rainforest plant that only grows well in rainforest type soils, which is basically what we're talking about already being in place in Florida
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@nobodyspecial4702 you can have limes fine, but not really the same as sweet orange juice is it
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of course it will! The time to stop it was before it entered America. As an Aussie, I just really can't grasp why you guys don't take imported diseases more seriously & stop them entering your country to begin with
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@justagirlsd3000 um the mice have been here for over 200 years, along with the rabbits & deer & foxes & camels & horses. The most recent of that group of imports was the cane toad, over 100 years ago. We learnt our lesson after that & still have to deal with those earlier arrivals, but we don't let any new ones in now!
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@aj-sz8mu it does bring in money though, those oranges are all tax dollars, which are lost when the oranges are lost. You can also bring plants into Australia btw, but not in soil & they must be sent to quarantine facilities for extended time periods, making it generally non-viable. Alternatively, they can be grown in quarantine approved facilities in other countries, such as is done with orchids sold in supermarkets here, all come from Indonesia, in sphagnum moss, not soil & all are grown in approved facilities. average people are limited in practical terms to only seeds & some plant seeds are not allowed, but most are, IF labelled fully & declared & free of foreign matter. Same with foods & other biologicals, most are actually allowed in, they just need to be declared & checked by trained staff before being let in. WA & Tas. are the only states in Australia with limits on taking plants, wood etc across borders, fruit is also significantly limited, due to fruit flies being non-existent in most of the country, but unable to be eliminated in other parts, so spread is prevented with strict quarantine on anything they could travel in. quarantine doesn't have to be that restrictive, just done smartly (and a safety net also needs to be in place to be monitoring & taking extreme action to eliminate immediately if any breaches occur, wiping it out before it's too late to do so
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@Vicious I guarantee you it's not!
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@Vicious illegal immigrants don't bring fruit with them. It's really not that hard to understand Also, illegals are a TINY percentage of travellers from Asia & you need to look at a world map if you think Florida is where any illegals from Asia end up lol. btw which Asian country do you think is sending you all these illegals & their fruit care packages from home?
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@violetviolet888 That's an unrelated issue to strong border protections preventing the disease entering in the first place, or going in hard with chemicals to eliminate it if it manages to slip through, that is what I am talking about here, not regenerative farming. The Australian government does support regenerative farming in a lot of settings too btw, but that has nothing to do with bio-security, so really not something relevant to discuss on the topic of citrus mites entering the country. What's needed is to stop the mites getting in, or if they do, to ring fence the entire area & basically nuke the lot with the most toxic chemicals that can possibly be used without harming the people around them. TOTALLY different issue to regenerative farming to minimise the impacts of severe weather & run off from agricultural land
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