Spraying Antibiotics to Fight Citrus Scourge Doesn't Help, Study Finds
Source: New York Times
Spraying Antibiotics to Fight Citrus Scourge Doesn’t Help, Study Finds
Researchers found spraying oxytetracycline on orange trees didn’t halt a devastating infection called citrus greening, but a more expensive method — injecting the trunks — holds some promise.
By Andrew Jacobs
Aug. 16, 2019
When the Environmental Protection Agency approved the spraying of certain antibiotics three years ago to fight a deadly bacterial infection decimating Florida’s orange groves, growers thought they might have found a silver bullet. But public health advocates reacted with alarm, warning that the large-scale use of medically important drugs in agriculture could help fuel antibiotic resistance in humans.
Now a new study by citrus researchers at the University of Florida suggests the spraying of one of the recommended drugs could be for naught.
The study, published last week in the journal Phytopathology, found that spraying the drug oxytetracycline on trees had no detectable impact on the bacterial disease know as citrus greening that slowly kills orange and grapefruit trees. Citrus greening has led to a 70 percent drop in citrus production across Florida since the pathogen first arrived from Asia in 2005.
Nian Wang, a microbiologist at the University of Florida’s Citrus Research and Education Center and a lead author of the paper, said researchers sprayed the leaves of infected orange trees with the oxytetracycline over a six-month period at concentrations recommended by the drug’s manufacturer but found no difference in the progression of the disease compared to trees that were sprayed with just water.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/health/antibiotics-citrus-spraying.html
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Related: The in planta effective concentration of oxytetracycline against Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus for suppression of citrus Huanglongbing (Phytopathology)