An ancient tree from India is now thriving in a Florida grove that was once home to citrus trees and could help provide the state with renewable energy.
With much of the Sunshine State’s once-famous citrus industry nearly wiped out in the past two decades due to two deadly diseases: green leaf disease and citrus canker, some farmers are turning to waterweeds, a climate-resilient species. trees, which have the potential to produce plant proteins and sustainable biofuels.
For many years, water buffaloes have been used as shade trees to produce beans (small brown beans) that are so bitter that wild boars won’t even eat them.
But unlike the orange and grapefruit trees that have long dominated Florida’s rural groves northwest of West Palm Beach, watermelon trees don’t require much attention.
Water buffalo trees also don’t require fertilizers or pesticides. They thrive in dry or rainy conditions. And they don’t need teams of workers to pick the beans. When ready to harvest, the machine simply shakes the small beans off the branches.
Terviva, a San Francisco-based company founded by Naveen Sikka in 2010, then uses its patented process to remove biopesticides that cause bitterness, making coffee beans suitable for food production.
“Florida presented a rare opportunity for Teveva and former citrus growers. The citrus industry’s historic decline prevented farmers from growing profitable crops on hundreds of thousands of acres, and a scalable crop was quickly needed. alternatives,” Sikka told The Associated Press. “Aquamarine is the perfect choice.”
What is a water-yellow tree?
Water buffalo is a wild tree native to India, Southeast Asia and Australia.
The legume is now used to make a variety of products, including Panova cooking oil and protein, which is a featured ingredient in Aloha’s Kona protein bars. The company also makes protein powder.
The beans also produce oil that can be used as biofuel, primarily in aviation, leaving a very low carbon footprint, said Ron Edwards, chairman of Terviva’s board of directors and a longtime Florida citrus grower.
Edwards said it’s not easy to turn a wild tree into a domesticated one.
“There are no books to read because no one has done it,” he said.
Edwards said bees and other pollinators feed on the flowers, supporting local biodiversity. One acre of trees may provide the same amount of oil as four acres of soybeans, he added.
What’s left after removing the oil from the soybeans is “a very high-grade protein that can be used as a substitute in baking, smoothies and a variety of other plant-based protein products,” Edwards said. “There is a lot of potential in the food industry and in the oil and petroleum industry.”
Why Florida?
“We know that water beans grow well in Florida and there are huge end markets for oils and proteins from water beans – biofuels, feed and food ingredients,” Sikka said. “As a result, farmers can now reduce costs and align more closely with the cutting edge of permaculture practices.”
At a nursery near Fort Pierce, workers skilled in the amaranth grafting technique secure a portion of the mother tree to amaranth rootstock, which ensures that the parent tree’s genetics and desired characteristics are continued in all of Twiwa’s trees.
Watermelon and citrus
Citrus was a staple crop in Florida for many years until the onset of citrus canker and later greening disease in the 1990s.
Citrus canker is a bacterial disease that is harmless to humans but causes lesions on the fruit, stems and leaves. Eventually, it makes the trees unproductive.
Citrus greening, also known as greening, slowly kills trees and degrades the fruit, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Greening has spread across Florida since 2005, destroying countless groves and reducing citrus production by 75 percent. The disease has spread to Louisiana, Texas and California.
In September 2023, Hurricane Ian caused an estimated $1.8 billion in damage to Florida’s agriculture industry, dealing a blow to the citrus industry early in the growing season.
Disease and climate issues also affect most of the world’s top citrus producing countries. For example, this year’s harvest in Brazil, the world’s largest orange juice exporter, is expected to be the worst in 36 years due to flooding and drought, according to forecasts from Fundecitrus, a citrus growers organization in Sao Paulo state.
But company officials said climate and disease have little impact on the water yellow trees.
“This tree is very tough, a jungle-tested tree,” Edwards said. “It’s survived a lot of abuse but very little care.”
Water buffalo also grows well in Hawaii, where it now thrives on land that formerly grew sugar cane.
What are citrus growers saying?
John Olson, who owns Circle O Ranch west of Fort Pierce, replaced his grapefruit grove with 215 acres (87.01 hectares) of water chestnut trees.
“We went through all the ups and downs of citrus, and ultimately gave up on citrus production because of greening,” Olson said. “For the most part, Florida’s citrus industry is dead.”
Although the grapefruit orchards are not large, it was common for grapefruit orchards of this size to be profitable in the 1980s and 1990s, Olson said.
Edwards said farmers use a variety of sprays to kill the insects that spread the disease. Eventually, the cost of caring for citrus trees became too risky.
That’s when he decided to take another path.
“What attracts me to water yellow is that it repurposes citrus fallow land that is now dormant,” he said. “It’s very attractive from an ecological perspective because it can replace some of the oils and vegetable proteins currently produced from things like palm oil, which is much more damaging to the environment.”
What about biofuels?
In December 2023, Teviva signed an agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation to provide biofuel raw materials that can be converted into biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel.
“Our cooperation with Mitsubishi is off to a good start,” Sika said, noting that the company works closely with Mitsubishi on tree planting, product development and sales. “Terviva’s progress is accelerated due to Mitsubishi’s global expertise and leadership in all aspects of Terviva’s business.”
What foods does Shuihuangpi produce?
Research is still ongoing, but Edwards said they make really good whole-wheat crackers in addition to cooking oils and other plant-based protein products, including flour and protein bars.
“If you don’t want your protein to come from meat,” Water Wasp offers alternatives to soy and yellow pea protein, he said.
