Citrus

How to Get the Most Juice From Your Lemons (Without a Fancy Gadget)

tomwt — Thu, 15 May 2025 14:49:36 +0000

How to Get the Most Juice From Your Lemons (Without a Fancy Gadget) tomwt Thu, 05/15/2025 - 07:49 More CNAS in the Media Lynn Andriani | Martha Stewart May 11, 2025

MARTHA STEWART - Whether you are baking, cooking, or mixing up a cocktail, knowing how to juice a lemon properly can make a big difference. The humble yellow fruit might not seem complicated, but factors like temperature, storage, variety, and even the way you cut it can all impact how much juice you get.

We're sharing how to pick, prep, and juice lemons for maximum yield—plus which tools work best, and which tricks are worth skipping. We spoke with two experts, one has decades of research into lemon varieties and cellular structure, and the other teaches students how to handle citrus in a professional kitchen. Their advice will help you learn how to get the most juice out of every lemon.

Start With a Good Lemon
Juicing starts with selection. According to Tracy Kahn, Ph.D, curator of the Citrus Variety Collection at the University of California, Riverside, the fresher the lemon, the juicier it is likely to be. “If it’s been sitting in cold storage or traveled a long way, it may have lost some moisture through the peel,” she says.

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Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection

Citrus

Tracy Kahn

How America’s Beloved Meyer Lemon Caused a Mid-Century Citrus Panic

tomwt — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 14:54:44 +0000

How America’s Beloved Meyer Lemon Caused a Mid-Century Citrus Panic tomwt Thu, 04/20/2023 - 07:54 More CNAS in the Media Mandy Naglich | Atlas Obscura April 12, 2023

ATLAS OBSCURA - Meyer lemon trees could carry the citrus tristeza virus (CTV) and flourish for years without showing any symptoms.

The urgent situation incited the first meeting of the International Organization of Citrus Virologists at the The University of California, Riverside in 1957. This group of scientists and citrus growers urged drastic measures towards Meyer lemons the world over. “Tristeza exists in the Mediterranean area where it has been introduced on the Meyer lemon,” wrote one scientist in a paper he presented at the 1961 meeting of the IOCV. He goes on to suggest that it would be “most desirable” for all Meyer lemon trees “in the Mediterranean basin to be eradicated.”

As news of the troublesome Meyer trickled out of Riverside, the hunt began for the troublesome trees throughout the state. County after county passed bills aimed at uprooting the garden trees to stop tristeza. During the summer of June 1957, in the city of Selma, California, two government officials went door to door, telling residents to remove their Meyer lemons. Roughly 14 days later, they returned to ensure that the trees were gone. The fragrant magenta buds of the Meyer lemon plant were one of its most admired characteristics. Now, they served as a sign of a tree that needed to be destroyed.

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Citrus

There’s a Citrus Pandemic Lurking in California Backyards

tomwt — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 18:23:10 +0000

There’s a Citrus Pandemic Lurking in California Backyards tomwt Thu, 07/14/2022 - 11:23 More CNAS in the Media Casey Rentz | Slate July 11, 2022

SLATE - Fortunately, researchers in academia and industry are searching for a more permanent fix. A few years ago, Hailing Jin, a plant molecular geneticist at University of California, Riverside, isolated a peptide from the citrus greening–tolerant finger lime tree that confers tolerance in other citrus trees. The peptide can be injected directly into the phloem of healthy trees. The tree will then mount a defense and create an immunological memory, similar to the action of a human vaccine.

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Citrus

Exotic Australian fruit may help save Florida's citrus industry

ilseu — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 01:38:09 +0000

Exotic Australian fruit may help save Florida's citrus industry ilseu Mon, 07/27/2020 - 18:38 More CNAS in the Media Greg Allen | NPR July 27, 2020

NPR - There's some good news in the long-running battle against a disease that's devastated Florida's signature crop, oranges. Researchers are developing tools to help control citrus greening, a disease that has killed thousands of acres of orange and grapefruit trees.

One of the most promising treatments was recently developed in a fruit most people have never heard of, the Australian finger lime. The finger lime, native to rainforests in Australia, looks a little like a pickle. It's just a couple inches long, grows on small trees and is gaining popularity as an exotic fruit.

Researcher Hailing Jin became interested in the fruit because it is related to oranges, but it isn't affected by citrus greening. Jin, a molecular geneticist at the University of California Riverside says, "When I heard that there are some wild citrus close relatives that show tolerance or partial resistance, then I (felt) like there must be some genes responsible for it."

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Want to save your citrus trees? Start a full-fledged insect war

ilseu — Fri, 24 Apr 2020 21:37:36 +0000

Want to save your citrus trees? Start a full-fledged insect war ilseu Fri, 04/24/2020 - 14:37 More CNAS in the Media Jeanette Marrantos | LA Times April 24, 2020

LOS ANGELES TIMES - Growing citrus is a dicey business these days in Southern California, and not at all recommended if you live within a two-mile radius of a tree infected with Huanglongbing disease — a.k.a. HLB or citrus greening disease. However, if you live outside a “red zone” and you’re willing to actively fight the disease, then yes, it’s still possible to grow limes for your margaritas.

But you’ll have to be ruthlessly proactive by declaring brutal warfare on the ants in your yard while embracing a tiny parasitoid wasp that eats its living prey from the inside out.

HLB is a bacterial disease spread by the tiny Asian citrus psyllid that loves to suck the sap from tender new “flush” growth on citrus and then lay its eggs. If the psyllid sups on a tree with HLB, it spreads the disease to every other tree it visits, and once infected, there is no cure.

The University of California’s department of Agriculture and Natural Resources has created an interactive map that identifies hot zones of infection: in Southern California they’re mostly in the four-corners area where Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties meet. Enter your address and it shows how close your home is to those infection areas.

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Find out if your area is affected with UC ANR's interactive HLB proximity map:

View interactive map

Check your citrus trees for Asian citrus psyllid:

View UC ANR video on youtube

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Department of Entomology

Elizabeth Grafton-Cardwell

UC Agriculture and Natural Resources