Who Killed the Florida Orange?
by danso on 4/20/2026, 9:00:43 PM
https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html
Comments
by: exmadscientist
The other thing that I can't help but think has seriously hurt the industry is that, between concentrate and flavor packs, almost all supermarket orange juice tastes like <i>garbage</i>. Fresh-squeezed orange juice is, of course, the benchmark. If you ever taste Minute Maid back-to-back with fresh-squeezed, well, you probably won't be buying Minute Maid again any time soon. It just doesn't even taste like oranges. There are a few brands available (the expensive ones, of course) that do come close enough to actually <i>taste like oranges</i>, but when the mass-market product falls that far down in quality, you can't help but wonder how anyone still wants to buy it.
4/21/2026, 12:35:42 AM
by: BoneShard
It was a sad day for me when I realized that a glass of orange juice(or any juice in general) isn't much better for your health than a can of soda and probably even worse than diet/zero coke.
4/21/2026, 3:36:27 AM
by: throw0101d
Meta: giving oranges as gifts at Christmas was a bit of a thing in the past when they used to be much more rare during winter: from Valencia/Ivrea for Europeans, and California/Florida in the US.<p>* <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-we-should-bring-back-tradition-christmas-orange-180971101/" rel="nofollow">https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-we-should-br...</a><p>In the US the Interstate system helped reduce shipping and logistic costs across state lines, and so oranges became more prevalent and less 'special' post-WW2.
4/22/2026, 7:08:42 PM
by: pjc50
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.<p>(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.)
4/21/2026, 1:11:47 PM
by: HardwareLust
It's not who killed it, it's what killed it and the answer is greed.
4/21/2026, 12:02:34 PM
by: CobrastanJorji
Fascinating story. I wonder how much the earlier pesticides contributed to the problem. The story mentions it as a thing that was passing, and it makes me curious what would have happened without the pesticides.<p>I'm also curious whether the bugs would survive if you cut down every orange tree in Florida, waited a couple of years, and then planted new groves.
4/22/2026, 6:57:45 PM
by: morninglight
Anita Bryant<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant#/media/File:Anita_Bryant_Sucks_Oranges_button.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Bryant#/media/File:Anita...</a>
4/22/2026, 7:39:35 PM
by: danso
gift link: <a href="https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food-houses-real-estate.html?tpcc=giftedarticle" rel="nofollow">https://slate.com/business/2026/04/florida-state-orange-food...</a>
4/20/2026, 9:00:44 PM
by: cratermoon
Sugarcane and pineapple used to be the biggest agricultural products in Hawaii. Now they're gone.
4/22/2026, 6:34:43 PM
by: fuzzfactor
Looks like premature collapse of a monoculture due to excess stress, much of it a result of human effort.
4/21/2026, 9:32:38 AM
by: peacechance
[dead]
4/20/2026, 9:33:36 PM