All In For Citrus, Episode 75 November 2024

In November, academia from around the world gathered in Jeju, Korea, for the 2024 International Citrus Congress. A contingent of researchers from the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) attended the event.

 

Michael Rogers, director of the UF/IFAS Citrus Research and Education Center, was among the attendees. He discusses the trip in the November episode of the All In For Citrus podcast. Rogers describes citrus growing on the island of Jeju. There’s about 54,000 acres of citrus grown there with annual production of about 15 million boxes. There is no confirmed presence of HLB on the island.

 

HLB was a major topic of discussion during the event. Water availability was also a focus of the presentations. Many citrus production regions are facing water shortfalls. This is expected to get worse as the climate changes and more demand is put on water supplies.

 

Brazil is one of those regions dealing with water availability. The country’s last crop was reduced by about 20% due to drought stress. Brazil also has seen a spike in HLB infection rates, which is forcing growers to plant new groves north of the current main growing regions.

 

Mohammad Shahid, UF/IFAS assistant professor of horticulture, also joined the podcast to provide an update on the cold-hardy citrus region. Production continues to expand in the area with some 7,000 to 8,000 acres of citrus.

 

Also in the November episode, Flavia Zambon discusses a field day hosted at the UF/IFAS Indian River Research and Education Center in Fort Pierce, Florida. The field day featured a tour of the experimental Millennium Block, which is evaluating HLB tolerance of various rootstock/scion combinations. The block is one of the largest trials for HLB tolerance in grapefruit.