The Nation - News from Dec. 31, 1985

Citrus canker has been identified at a 40-acre nursery in central Florida, the largest of 18 nurseries where the highly contagious bacterial disease has been discovered so far, officials said in Tallahassee. The Hutchinson Citrus Nursery, south of Sebring, has 4.3 million plants with an estimated value of more than $2 million. It was not yet certain whether all the firm’s citrus stock will have to be destroyed, an official said. The canker threatening Florida’s $2.4 billion citrus industry is harmless to humans but deadly to trees.