Five mechanisms
Five cases singled out because each shows a different mechanism by which the region's land and economy change hands. The text below is the same as in the reference; the status lines are the Status as of 12 September 2026 table.
Five cases are singled out on the interactive map because each shows a different mechanism reworking the region. Each rests on at least one official source, an independent source for any historical, financial or superlative claim, a date, a defined relationship or event, a separation of completed from announced activity, and no reliance on private communications. Node size, centrality and the outside share are computed from the dataset and are never adjusted for a case.
Greening and the grove to pasture turn
One disease rewrites the land use of a district in twenty years. Module class figures, USDA citrus series and the corporate record of the wind downs.
Huanglongbing reaches Florida in 2005 and the state's production falls from a 244 million box orange peak to about 20 million boxes twenty years later [INVSP][ATLFED][CIM25A]. The module's check columns make the conversion visible county by county: parcel groves exceed surveyed commercial citrus by 47,926 acres in Highlands, 22,889 in DeSoto, 14,221 in Hardee, and by a margin in every county, grove land already becoming pasture while the roll still reads groves [MOD][NASS24]. The documented exits carry names: Southern Gardens ceases processing in 2019; Alico, the listed heir of a railroad land company, winds down its citrus division after the 2024 to 2025 harvest, abandons trees on about 90 percent of its producing acres, ends its Tropicana agreement in May 2025 and turns to land sales and development applications [CIM19][ALPR25][ALSEC2][ALSEC3]. A dead grove at Lake Placid passing to a federal easement for rewilding closes the loop [HNSLP].
Observed status as of 12 September 2026: Alico Inc
The citrus division is wound down after the 2024 to 2025 harvest; trees abandoned on about 90 percent of producing acres; the Tropicana agreement terminated May 2025; about 49,537 acres remain across eight counties with land moving to sale, lease and development.
Announced or scheduled
Collier County village applications filed March 2025 remain announced, not completed.
Sources: [ALPR25] [AL10K] [ALSEC2] [ALSEC3] [WGCU25] · Position of Citrus greening reaches Florida in this dataset: betweenness rank 103 of 243 on the full graph, 210 on the location and lineage graph.
The sugar complex
The densest lane on the map: two companies, one cooperative and the towns they hold. Corporate records, the module owner table and the public record of the 2010 river of grass acquisition.
The Network view's densest structure is the Glades sugar economy: U.S. Sugar with its mill, railroad, citrus subsidiary and company towns; Florida Crystals with Osceola, Okeelanta, the rice mill and the power plant; the growers cooperative with its Glades Sugar House; and the refining group they own together [USSH][FCJ][WSCGC][ASRH]. The complex is held up by institutions the map draws as its neighbours: the dike, the drainage district's canals, the breeding station at Canal Point, the experiment station at Belle Glade [WHHD][ARSCP][EREC]. Its towns are company artifacts: Clewiston planned around a mill, Bryant built for one and demolished after it closed, South Bay and Pahokee shaped by theirs [WCLE][WBRY][PBCH2][WPAH]. On the module's owner table U.S. Sugar carries 93,986 acres inside the six core counties, second in this dataset, with the bulk of its land east of them [MOD].
Observed status as of 12 September 2026: U.S. Sugar Corporation
Operating. Farms about 245,000 acres with the Clewiston mill and refinery, the railroad and Southern Gardens; carried at 93,986 acres inside the six core counties on the module's owner table. The 26,800 acre sale to the district closed in October 2010 and the Imperial purchase completed 30 November 2022.
Sources: [USSH] [MOD] [BNO10] [BB22] · Position of U.S. Sugar Corporation in this dataset: betweenness rank 17 of 243 on the full graph, 7 on the location and lineage graph.
A tier of one
The natural break in the owner table leaves one family company alone at the top. The module owner table and the company's own stated figures.
Lykes Bros is the module's natural break: 337,036 acres, 14.5 percent of the regional base, with the largest logarithmic gap in the owner distribution immediately below it [MOD]. The map shows what that acreage connects to: a Tampa headquarters and a steamship past; citrus sold by contract to Florida's Natural; two district scale water projects, Nicodemus Slough and Brighton Valley, that turn ranchland into storage infrastructure; easements in the Fisheating Creek basin; and stewardship recognition from Audubon to the state [LYKH][LYKC][LYKN][LYKB][SEAGL][AUDL]. One family company, held privately since 1910, is simultaneously the region's largest rancher, one of its water utilities and one of its conservation counterparties.
Observed status as of 12 September 2026: Lykes Bros Inc
Operating. 337,036 acres on the module's owner table, the region's natural break; cattle, citrus, sugarcane, forestry, hunting leases and two district water projects on the ranch.
Sources: [MOD] [LYKL] [LYKN] [LYKB] · Position of Lykes Bros Inc in this dataset: betweenness rank 13 of 243 on the full graph, 14 on the location and lineage graph.
The solar wave
Eighteen announced energy centers, every one coded announced, never completed. The FPL 2026 Ten Year Site Plan and the module's announced conversion table.
FPL's 2009 pilot at Arcadia was the nation's largest solar photovoltaic site at its dedication, as the utility reported; fifteen centers now run across DeSoto, Okeechobee and Hendry counties, every one a section scale parcel off the agricultural roll [FPLD][OBAMA][TYSP]. The April 2026 Ten Year Site Plan announces eighteen more in the module's reading, about 10,800 estimated acres, with service dates from 2027 to 2029; none is on the 2025 roll and every one is coded announced on this map, because the DOR code lags actual use and a site plan entry is not a plant [TYSP][MOD]. The wave's counterparties are unnamed: no filing reachable at this release names the selling landowners, and the map leaves the seller side of those edges empty until a record does [TYSP].
Observed status as of 12 September 2026: The eighteen announced solar centers
None is on the 2025 roll and none is operating; every one is coded announced.
Announced or scheduled
Announced in the April 2026 Ten Year Site Plan for service between 2027 and 2029, about 10,800 estimated acres per the module's announced conversions table.
Sources: [TYSP] [MOD] · Position of FPL 2026 Ten Year Site Plan in this dataset: betweenness rank 84 of 243 on the full graph, 182 on the location and lineage graph.
The invisible vegetable economy
A rotational economy on leased range that the parcel roll cannot see. County extension records, the association's own record and the module's DeSoto limitation note.
The Census of Agriculture records 1,424 acres of watermelons and 3,762 acres of vegetables in DeSoto County; the parcel roll classifies about 4,300 agricultural parcels there as grazing and the satellite reads the same fields as pasture [AGC22][MOD]. The module states the mechanism as a limitation and this map carries it as a case: a rotational economy on leased rangeland, planted in winter, harvested in spring, invisible to every annual layer and surfacing only in the five year Census. The DeSoto Watermelon Association and the county's festival are its public face; the acreage itself appears in no map but this one [DWA][AGC22][MOD].
Observed status as of 12 September 2026: The rotational vegetable economy
Operating and invisible to the roll: the 2022 Census records 1,424 acres of watermelons and 3,762 acres of vegetables in DeSoto County on land the roll and the satellite classify as grazing, grown largely on leased range.
Sources: [AGC22] [MOD] · Position of DeSoto Watermelon Association in this dataset: betweenness rank 114 of 243 on the full graph, 119 on the location and lineage graph.
Read the full context in Five mechanisms and The land and its owners.