Schweppes Holdings Africa Limited’s subsidiary, Sunrise Citrus Estates, intends to establish a 2,700 hectare citrus plantation in Beitbridge with the project expected to create thousands of jobs across the value chain. It is also envisaged that the proposed project will add impetus to Zimbabwe’s exports growth. An Environmental Impact Assessment is already underway.

In a joint statement, Sunrise Citrus Estates and African Sustainability Consultants said: “Sunrise Citrus Estates proposes to establish a citrus plantation in Beitbridge, Zimbabwe. The 2,700ha citrus plantation will create employment for local communities. The implementation of the project will enable the processing of juice for local and international markets as well as export of raw fruit.”

Recently, Schweppes Zimbabwe announced 100% acquisition of Beitbridge Juicing Company in a vertical integration move that saw the beverage producer strengthening its supply chain by taking control of a key raw material in the form of orange juice concentrate. At the time of the acquisition, BBJ supplied Schweppes Zimbabwe with 75% of the company’s orange juice requirements for Mazoe Orange Crush while the remainder is imported from South Africa.

Through the acquisition, it was hoped that the move would improve capacity utilisation at BBJ to enable Schweppes Zimbabwe obtain 100% of its juice, which is a key raw material for Mazoe Orange Crush, locally. The company is headquartered in Harare and the production plant is in Beitbridge close to the raw material which is oranges. Chronical.co.zw

Farmers and ranchers in the US south continue to assess the damage following the record-setting and deadly Arctic blast. Texas State agricultural officials say the cost of this storm will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Just our citrus industry, their loss of just the fruit, not including damage to trees, is over USD300 million and it will put a lot of our citrus growers out of business,” said Sid Miller, commissioner of agriculture in Texas. “Dairymen are going to go bankrupt and some of our poultry farmers, but this all could have been avoided.” The straight-talking Miller lamented over not just the arctic air’s disastrous impact on fruits, vegetables and livestock, but also the State’s own hand in worsening the crisis by not prioritizing agricultural processors.

He said his request to add agricultural processors to the critical infrastructure list still hasn’t been answered by Governor Greg Abbott, R-Texas. The State’s dairy industry has been particularly impacted as processors have gone without the power or natural gas needed to keep running.

Meanwhile, in South Texas, fruits and vegetables were already planted in the ground and on the tree. “You don’t ever think about a freeze in the Rio Grande Valley, but our citrus crop is basically wiped out,” said Miller. “All of our oranges are gone and 60% of our grapefruit.”  He says the other 40% would still be good enough to squeeze for juice but the processing plants that do it don’t have power.  He expects it will take three to four weeks to survey the damage and get a final tally, although the true impact may take longer to figure out. Drovers.com

Leo Espinosa, Sales Director, of Rio Grande Juice commented: “Remember that we just came from another event last Summer when Hurricane Hannah impacted the Texas Citrus Region, after the hurricane we lost about 30% of the Citrus crop, so this new freeze came to worsen the current conditions. We still don’t know yet about the impact of the freeze on next year crop, there will be for sure less fruit available due to the effect, however we still don’t know for sure how many trees were lost due to the freeze, more information can be confirmed within the next weeks to come.

“Customers have been supportive & thankfully we face this year with a favorable juice concentrate inventory scenario, however we don’t know for next year how our inventory levels position will be in the case we face a low crop and therefore a low processing season. I am sure there will be some sort of government support for the Texas citrus growers but nothing yet confirmed.”

New UC Riverside research shows that a naturally occurring peptide found in HLB-tolerant citrus relatives, such as Australian finger lime, can not only kill the bacteria that causes the disease, it can also activate the plant’s own immune system to inhibit new HLB infection. Few treatments can do both. Research demonstrating the effectiveness of the peptide in greenhouse experiments has just been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The disease is caused by a bacterium called CLas that is transmitted to trees by a flying insect. One of the most effective ways to treat it may be through the use of this antimicrobial peptide found in Australian finger lime, a fruit that is a close relative of citrus plants.

“The peptide’s corkscrew-like helix structure can quickly puncture the bacterium, causing it to leak fluid and die within half an hour, much faster than antibiotics,” explained Hailing Jin, the UCR geneticist who led the research. When the research team injected the peptide into plants already sick with HLB, the plants survived and grew healthy new shoots. Infected plants that went untreated became sicker and some eventually died.

“The treated trees had very low bacteria counts, and one had no detectable bacteria anymore,” Jin said. “This shows the peptide can rescue infected plants, which is important as so many trees are already positive.”

The team also tested applying the peptide by spraying it. For this experiment, researchers took healthy sweet orange trees and infected them with HLB-positive citrus psyllids. After spraying at regular intervals, only three of 10 treated trees tested positive for the disease, and none of them died. By comparison, nine of 10 untreated trees became positive, and four of them died. ScienceDaily.com

The National Institutes of Health’s National Centre of Biotechnology Information (NCBI) recently announced plans to evaluate the clinical efficacy of hesperidin against COVID-19. Orange juice and sweet oranges contain hesperidin. NCBI referred to hesperidin as “an old herbal medicine … used to treat vascular diseases in Europe and Australia and distributed with vitamin C as a dietary supplement in the USA.

“Hesperidin is a promising drug candidate for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19,” NCBI continued. “Hesperidin interferes with viral entry through ACE2 receptors, improves the host cellular immunity, minimizes the release of inflammatory mediators and its mixture protects against venous thromboembolism.”

NCBI stated that “Hesperidin is a common flavone glycoside found in citrus fruit such as lemons and sweet oranges. Hesperidin has several pharmacological activities such as anti-atherogenic, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, venotonic, cardioprotective, anti-inflammatory and antihypertensive actions. The anti-inflammatory activity of hesperidin was mainly attributed to its antioxidant defence mechanism and suppression of pro-inflammatory cytokine production.”

Florida Department of Citrus (FDOC) Executive Director Shannon Shepp reacted to the planned study: “We are aware of the recent study related to hesperidin and COVID-19. The Florida Department of Citrus is not currently involved in or planning any research related to COVID-19 but continues to monitor developments on the topic. Current research shows that 100 percent orange juice provides a variety of nutrients and beneficial plant compounds, including hesperidin, that when consumed daily can help support a healthy immune system.

“Recent clinical studies supported by FDOC continue to reinforce the broad potential benefits of plant compounds with antioxidant-like properties, like hesperidin and carotenoids, found in 100% orange juice. Further studies on hesperidin, which is highly concentrated in citrus and rarely found in other foods, are necessary to learn more about its role in the diet.” CitrusIndustry