How Drones are Saving Florida’s Avocado Trees

(Source: CBS News)  

In Florida, a devastating disease threatens the nation’s nearly half-a-billion dollar avocado industry. That’s leading researchers to use extreme measures: drones and dogs.

Avocado grove owner Art Ballard said his trees mysteriously started dying one day. Then it was discovered they had a disease called laurel wilt and had to be cut down. Until now, there was no way to tell the trees were even sick before it was too late, reports CBS News correspondent Vicente Arenas.

The hunt for the deadly fungus begins in the air. A drone scans a seemingly healthy avocado grove and in just minutes, its multi-spectral camera spots trees in trouble.

Trees indicated in yellow or red may be infected by a fungus, carried by the microscopic ambrosia beetle that causes laurel wilt.

“What [drones] are going to do is cover more area for us and pinpoint an area that looks like it might have the disease,” Florida International University microbiologist DeEtta Mills said.

Once the drone has narrowed the search area, the dogs set to work. The fungus spreads through a tree’s interior and is invisible to the human eye, but the smell is inescapable to the sensitive noses of these trained dogs. They check every tree at risk and sit when the disease is detected.

It was amazing to see the effectiveness of the dogs, Mills said.

“Because this is such a difficult thing for them to do, is to sniff out a fungus that’s inside of a tree,” she said. “It’s not like drugs in somebody’s pocket.”

Laurel wilt has killed an estimated 6,000 avocado trees in Florida in the last few years. The state is the second-largest avocado producer in the nation, and a $64 million industry is now at risk.

Ballard has lost nearly 100 avocado trees to the disease.

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