GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences tropical fruit expert is doing his best to help commercial and residential avocado tree owners battle the dangerous laurel wilt pathogen.
With 12,000 commercial avocado trees already destroyed by laurel wilt, growers need a solution, but so do residential homeowners, as the pathogen has now been reported in all but six of Florida’s 67 counties, said Jonathan Crane, a UF/IFAS professor of horticultural sciences and a tropical fruit Extension specialist.
The only counties not to have reported laurel wilt are Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Gulf, Franklin and Wakulla – all in the Panhandle, said Crane, a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, Florida.
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