John Gless, a California grower of Valencia and Navel oranges, lemons, mandarins and grapefruit in southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, agrees with the industry sentiment that HLB is “already here, we just haven’t found it yet.”

While HLB was found in California in 2012, its discovery was in a heavily-grafted residential tree in suburban Los Angeles. No other discoveries of HLB have been confirmed in California.

“It’s not a matter anymore of if we find the disease, but when,” Gless said.

Florida trip

Gless and fellow CCM director Jim Finch were in Florida in early March on behalf of the California citrus industry to see just how bad HLB is there and to bring back lessons to an industry trying to avoid a similar situation as what happened in Florida.

Florida is said to have HLB infections in 100 percent of its groves and is facing economic disaster in its juice industry as processing plants do not have the fruit available to run efficiently.

“We saw many plants that have to be running at red-ink levels,” said Finch.

During the trip, Finch heard Florida needs approximately three million new trees per year to replace those dying every year from HLB.