Ricke Kress is the president of Southern Gardens Citrus. You may not know those names, but there’s a decent chance you’ve ingested the fruits of their labor since the company manages two and a half million orange trees and squeezes those oranges for some of the largest juice companies. But like many orange growers, Kress has a big problem. His orange trees are suffering from a disease known as citrus greening. And even after chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees, growers can’t seem to stop it. So the latest plan is to alter the DNA of oranges. Will consumers stand for an orange that isn’t quite an orange anymore? Kress insists says that “the consumer will support us if it’s the only way.” The debate (even among growers) is heated, and how we handle the orange situation could have a big impact on the future of crops. Here’s the NYT’s always excellent Amy Harmon on a race to save the orange by altering it’s DNA.

+ For a glimpse into the debate, you can check out Michael Pollan’s related tweet and the responses he got.