For years Shane Platt and his family have fought to keep their Osceola County citrus groves thriving. A disease called citrus greening has taken hold of a few of their plots of citrus.

The disease has left misshapen, weaker and less sweet fruit where there once was a thriving citrus grove for more than 130 years.

Platt said he first started to notice the impact back in 2009, and every year he said they’ve seen fewer and fewer boxes of citrus ready to ship out to juicers.

“Last year I produced about 1500 boxes of citrus from that same block that was once producing 5000 boxes," Platt said. "That’s just devastating.”

And Platt isn’t the only one who noticed the difference. According the U.S. Department of Agriculture, citrus greening has caused an overall 59 percent decrease in citrus production.

That's forced many citrus growers throughout the state to shut down.

We spoke with experts from the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, and they explained that citrus greening is a bacteria which is spread by a non-native insect. Citrus growers throughout the country are seeing what it does to their fruit.

When the fruit can easily be plucked off the tree or if it is falling to the ground before it is mature, that is how growers know the tree has been affected by greening.

Just last week the USDA projected higher production levels of citrus, but growers like Platt say they won’t see much of an improvement this year since greening is still plaguing their crop.

“I think there will be a profit to be made in citrus it’s just can we survive it," Platt said. "We need time and we need a cure.”

Most groves in Florida affected

Nearly all of the state's citrus groves are affected in varying degrees by greening, and researchers, growers and experts agree that the crisis has already started to compromise Florida's prominence as a citrus-growing region. Florida is second in the world, behind Brazil, in growing juice oranges, producing about 80 percent of juice in the U.S.

This past growing season, the state produced 104 million boxes of oranges, which comprise the bulk of Florida's overall citrus crop. In 2003, two years before greening was discovered and prior to several devastating hurricanes, 243 million boxes were picked.

"This affects the whole state. The economic impact. The landscape. The iconic image of Florida and how it has drawn people here to smell the orange blossoms in the spring and look forward to that Christmas gift of fresh Florida citrus," said state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, whose family has grown oranges in Polk County since the early 1900s. "It will have a ripple effect throughout the economy if we can't get our arms around this disease."

Experts say that if a solution isn't found, Florida's entire citrus industry could collapse. Officials worry that some packinghouses and processing plants will have to close because of a lack of fruit. That could send the industry, with its 75,000 jobs, tumbling.

Compounding the problem is the timing of it: The disease coincides with an increase in foreign competition and a decrease in juice consumption as health-conscious consumers count carbs. In July, U.S. orange juice retail sales fell to the lowest level in 12 years for a second consecutive four-week period.

"We're in the fight of our life," said Michael Sparks, the CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, the marketing and lobbying arm for the state's citrus growers.

The war room in the fight against the yellow dragon is found in Lake Alfred, 30 miles southwest of Walt Disney World, in a nondescript cluster of buildings at the University of Florida's Citrus Research and Education Center.

There, some of the world's top citrus researchers - from the U.S., China, Brazil, India - slouch over microscopes and peer into makeshift greenhouses, hoping to unlock the puzzle that is greening. They talk about nucleotides and genomes like regular folks order a sandwich.

They understand clearly that there is no magic bullet - an injection or spray, for example - to cure the disease instantly. So they concentrate on two things: a short-term workaround that will allow existing trees to survive, and a long-term solution - possibly three to five years away - to develop a greening resistant tree.

Experiments study everything from how fast the psyllid flies to how it's attracted to the odor of an infected tree. One French researcher has tied the bug to a string and a post to measure its flight patterns. Another study, underway at an organic grower's groves, assesses whether tiny wasps can be released en masse to gobble the bad bugs.

For three decades, horticulture professors Jude Grosser and Fred Gmitter have worked at the center, mostly studying citrus breeding and genetics. The two men are rock stars in the citrus world because of their vast knowledge. Now, much of their focus is on greening.

Grosser and Gmitter have discovered that a certain variety of orange trees grafted onto one particular kind of rootstock appears to be more tolerant to greening. Those trees could play a big role in managing the disease down the road.

"A lot of people are looking for miracle cures, but the answer for greening will be a number of different pieces," Grosser said.

The pair want a solution and fast. They've spent their careers developing different fruit varieties, such as easy-to-peel and extra-juicy oranges. Some varieties are nearly ready for release and sales, they said, but most growers don't want to take a chance on anything new until greening is gone.

"We need to give the tree a chance to beat the disease," said Grosser. "How can we do that?"

Since 2008, $90 million has been spent in Florida on greening research, much of that money raised by growers from a tax they pay on every box of citrus that's picked. And the 2014 federal farm bill included $125 million for greening research.

Growers try variety of measures

Growers are also taking matters into their own hands. Some have tried putting giant tents over their trees and using the sun's heat in an attempt to kill the greening.

Rick Kress, president of Southern Gardens Citrus, one of the state's largest juice suppliers, has hired a private team of researchers to work on genetically engineering a greening resistant tree with the DNA from spinach.

Kress knows that introducing juice from a genetically modified orange would create another hurdle because of the public's perception of such foods. But the alternative - no juice at all - is unthinkable.

"Irrespective of the challenges, Florida orange juice is not going to go away," he said. "Because Florida had the disease first, we're on the forefront of dealing with it and finding a solution that will ultimately benefit the entire United States citrus industry."

Information from Associated Press was used in this story.