Scientists and growers are looking for new ways to protect citrus from the latest natural threat -- greening.

BY PHIL LONG


FORT PIERCE -- Hurricanes wiped out a quarter of his 100 acres of groves in 2004, and the citrus canker eradication program felled 50 more acres, but Pete Spyke is mounting a cutting-edge comeback in a small experimental grove called ``Rock Bottom.''

Just off Okeechobee Road a few miles west of Florida's Turnpike, Spyke has planted 1,496 tangelo and grapefruit trees on nearly six acres. Some of the year-old trees now stand four to six feet tall.