MONTE VISTA, CO  With its potato acreage at 58,100 this fall season, Colorado's San Luis Valley has pared its planted ground by nearly 20,000 acres in the last decade.

In 1996, Colorados fall crop acreage was at 77,800, but it declined to 76,900 the next season. In 1998 it dropped again to 75,700 acres, but bounced up slightly to 77,000 acres in 1999.

By Aug. 30, the 103.2 million-box Washington apple crop of 2004, one of the larger on record, was down to 1.6 million boxes remaining in storage, and projections are for a 7 percent reduction in the fresh crop size this season.

The smaller crop of 95 million boxes, which might yet be reduced depending on fruit size as the season continues, is being described by industry members as welcome news.

From the time he was 14, Kevin Stennes knew he wanted to make his living working on the family farm. So did his younger brother Mark  well, younger by nine minutes that is.

Like many identical twins, the 23-year-old brothers have many things in common besides looks, including the same hobbies and even the same careers.

Dole banana containers made the television networks' national broadcasts in the days following Hurricane Katrina, as cameramen panned piles of rubble in Gulfport, MS. There, amid the crushed chaos of Gulfport, the familiar red logo could be seen on containers that were twisted and washed into huge piles of debris.

"I don't know of anybody not getting a fuel surcharge," said David Lund of Allen Lund Co. Inc. in Los Angeles, putting a definite emphasis on the word not.

It might be listed as a surcharge or it is in the rate they quote but they are getting it, he added. More and more, our carriers are demanding a fuel surcharge as a separate line item.

And even with the surcharge, Mr. Lund said that trucks are tight and many drivers arent willing to haul product because they are not making any money.

Between battling citrus canker for the past decade, overcoming the damage and destruction caused by a four-hurricane disaster in 2004, and numerous other problems that have plagued Florida's citrus industry in recent years, the state is now faced with the threat and fear of an outbreak of Liberibacter asiaticus, commonly known as citrus greening, a bacterial disease that kills citrus trees.