In the world of mechanical citrus harvesting, where agribusiness meets science fiction, there are trunk shakers and canopy shakers. Trunk shakers live up to their name. A machine with a mechanical arm simply grabs the base of an orange tree, jostles fruit loose into a ground-level catch system, then moves on to the next tree. Canopy shakers, though, take harvesting to another level. These machines work in pairs — pairs that cost $1 million. In a diesel-powered parade, they roll down both sides of a row of trees. Each carries vertical agitators that look like round hair brushes. The steel bristles on those brushes reach into the canopy of an orange tree and shake branches back and forth.

Robin Bryant, a Palmetto citrus consultant, keeps a pair of boots outside her front door. When a client calls, she pulls on those boots and climbs into her Hummer. In three hours, she can reach just about any grove in Florida. Have fruit, will travel.

Florida’s citrus growers are facing such a multitude of challenges that many wonder whether an industry that once ruled the state can survive in it. There is citrus canker, which all but wiped out the state’s nursery trees, hurricanes that destroyed entire groves, urban sprawl that turned rows of orange trees into rows of houses, and competition from Brazilian growers, a group of challengers who don’t always play fair. The leaders of Florida’s $9.3 billion citrus industry knew all that, but what they did not know was what the impact of those woes might have on the future.

Along the Indian River, world leader in grapefruit production, lots of growers and packers pay extra for their business cards. Flip one over and you will find contact information printed in Japanese. That’s because Japan is the leading grapefruit market in the world.