All In For Citrus, Episode 69 May 2024

Late spring and early summer are busy times for University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) citrus scientists. They are out in the field preparing new research projects for the coming season and assessing data from ongoing projects.

Michael Rogers, director of the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center, discusses some of that work during the May All In For Citrus podcast episode. He is particularly excited about some variety development work moving into field trials to be tested in the real-world environment to see how well trees resist HLB and perform in general.

Manjul Dutt, UF/IFAS assistant professor of horticultural sciences, will be planting some of his transgenic citrus varieties, which have shown resistance to HLB.

“These are replicated trials. And these varieties have not been in the field yet, so it is exciting to see those going out into the field,” Rogers says.

Another project progressing into field trials is work by UF/IFAS geneticist Nian Wang. He is using gene-editing techniques and CRISPR to develop citrus plants resistant to HLB. Work in the laboratory and greenhouse has been very promising. Now, these non-transgenic plants are going out into the field for the real test.

“We are going to be guardedly optimistic about them and watching them over the next few years to see how they hold up, perform and resist HLB,” Rogers says. “We will keep everyone updated on how they are looking. But for the first six or eight months, we don’t expect to have much to report. It is usually after about a year that we can start reporting on disease status, and then after about three years, we’ll start seeing and reporting on fruit and yields.”

Learn more about these research projects in the May episode of All In For Citrus. The podcast is a joint partnership between UF/IFAS and AgNet Media.