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Kern County citrus growers are worried about the looming threat of citrus greening disease, known as Huanglongbing in China, where it originated. The illness isn't harmful to people or animals, but it kills fruit trees and has decimated the citrus industry in Florida. The disease is carried on an insect called the Asian citrus psyllid. Not every psyllid is a carrier, but the disease cannot spread without the pest, which transmits it by feeding on the liquid inside citrus leaves.

 Courtesy of the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources

The Central Valley's citrus industry is hailing a potential breakthrough in the fight against a so-far incurable bacterial disease threatening to wipe out Kern's mandarin, orange and lemon groves.

A researcher at the University of California, Riverside has identified a naturally occurring protein compound that appears to not only treat trees infected with the disease but also immunize them against it.

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