Saved... By the USDA...

When you live in Florida and you have a citrus tree in your yard, you get used to having the Department of Agriculture come to your home. Tree inspections. For Canker.

Canker is a bad bad disease that our citrus crops get and it damages the trees resulting in no fruit production. It spreads. For the longest time, Canker had never been north of Boca Raton, but after the hurricane… all that wind spread that bad disease north. Now if you happen to live in a home that has a tree in the yard and it has been diagnosed with Canker, that bad boy has to be removed as well as any tree within something like 1900 feet which means, it could be your in your neighbor’s yard. Yeah, there are lawsuits and the works. Canker is a hot topic down here and it can get very ‘cantankerous’.

Anyway, I have an orange tree and I promise you, it puts out the most sour and foul tasting fruit you have ever tasted. It could be used by poison control to induce vomiting. Sour. Bitter. Awful. The first time we tried it, I thought it was an age thing. My thinking was, perhaps a more mature tree had better fruit. Wrong. This is just a bad tree. I threaten to chop it down, but here is my problem. I have issues with cutting down trees in my yard. We don’t have many of them and I think they’re too pretty. So the tree has stayed.

Flash forward to September, two hurricanes that piece of crap orange tree survived. My neighbor came by with the chain saw to chop up our other trees and my spouse looked at me and said, “OK, here’s your chance. Let’s get rid of it once and for all.” But. I. Could. Not. GRRR. That stupid crappy tree had endured two hurricanes and then we were going to take a chain saw to it? So it stayed.

October came and the Department of Agriculture showed up to inspect it. I walked over and said, “Look, that tree produces the worst fruit. If it has canker, take it away, I don’t care. As a matter of fact, feel free to say it has canker even if it DOESN’T!” Alas, it was canker free. Again. I have no issues with it dying a natural death… canker, hurricane, 40 day flood, but it can’t come at my hands. They laughed, gave me suggestions on who to call to see if it is missing nutrients and they were on their way.

So today, I get a letter from the Department of Agriculture saying they want to use my tree as a sentinel. My best friend from high school is visiting and happened to answer the door, so she passed me this info via phone (I was at work). The whole way home I was thinking, “What in the hell is a sentinel tree?” I called my Mom. I’m laughing saying, “Surely they are not so desperate that they are looking to use my POS orange tree to help create new crops?!!” She’s been here when we’ve pulled an orange off that tree; she KNOWS how bad they taste. She’s saying, “No way!” and she’s doing a search for me on the computer trying to help me decipher what in the hell a sentinel tree is. We knew it was guarding... but how does a tree guard? It is bringing visions of The Wizard of Oz and those mean apple trees.

Well, I read my letter when I got home. You may all breathe a sigh of relief. They aren’t using my POS orange tree to spawn any other foul fruit producing trees. My tree is going to be monitored every 60 days… it is being used as part of their ‘early warning system’.

“Should Citrus Canker ever be introduced into your area, the Sentinel program would aid in identifying the infection in its earliest states and steps could be taken to eliminate or prevent further spread.”

Of course I’m going to say yes. (There’s this little permission slip thingy you have to fill out to be part of the program.) Citrus is vital to our economy. If this is what it takes to help, I’m all for it.

But all I keep thinking now is, “Damn. Now I REALLY can’t cut it down. It is serving a purpose.” In the spring I’ll be off to find out how to make it produce better fruit.