The urgency to find a solution to huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening disease, is why citrus is an initial focus of Florida’s Crop Transformation Center (CTC). The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) and the state’s citrus industry established the center three years ago.
Through the CTC, faculty at the main UF campus in Gainesville and at the Citrus Research and Education Center (CREC) in Lake Alfred are working to find citrus varieties that can tolerate or resist HLB.
“Our purpose is to use cutting-edge tools — like gene editing, precision breeding and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven data analysis — to create plants that are healthier, more productive and more resilient to challenges like disease and climate stress,” said Charlie Messina, director of the CTC and a UF/IFAS professor of horticultural sciences. “We use AI to study how proteins in bacteria and plants interact, so we can stop the bacteria from taking over the plant and messing up how it works.”
Researchers at the CTC are identifying key genes that give plants natural tolerance to HLB, introducing those traits into new citrus varieties and testing them in collaboration with Florida growers…