US: Florida gets $9 million citrus greening research grant
The grant "is great news for the industry," said Mike Taylor, a Florida citrus commissioner and vice president of agriculture for Collier Enterprises in Immokalee.
Stopping citrus greening is crucial to the future of Florida citrus. The disease has caused billions of dollars in losses over the past five years.
"Greening disease is a very serious disease that could destroy our industry," Taylor said. "We've got to find an answer to cure or develop resistance."
Mongi Zekri, a multicounty citrus agent in Southwest Florida, said the grant is available to any state researcher who wants to apply for part of the money.
Most groves in Southwest Florida are infected by the disease, Zekri said, adding that citrus growers are taking care of their own groves. Growers are spending more money to control the disease by using a fertilizer feeding process called foliar nutrition, Zekri said, and trees still are producing citrus.
Zekri estimates that growers are spending more than $500 per acre to manage citrus greening, on top of $1,500 per acre for regular citrus grove maintenance.
The $9 million will come from the USDA's Specialty Crop Research Initiative, a Farm Bill program designed to promote specialty crop research.
The grant will support a five-year project, submitted by the Citrus Research and Development Foundation, a nonprofit corporation organized under Florida law as a direct service organization of the University of Florida.
Its goal is to explore ways to halt greening by stopping the ability of insects to spread the disease from infected trees to healthy ones.
Research will include the use of biological controls to neutralize the Asian Citrus Psyllid, the small bug that carries HLB, according to a Florida Citrus Mutual statement.
Zekri said the grant will be distributed throughout the country for citrus greening research focused on the biological control of citrus psyllids.
Source: naplesnews.com