The Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) board of directors had a busy meeting in September. The board approved several research proposals for funding. And one researcher was asked to revise and resubmit a proposal.
“A complicating factor was several of the proposals were put together before the ‘off-year’ of oxytetracycline (OTC) usage was repealed, but we concluded that it still made sense to have backup products ready in case they are needed,” said Rick Dantzler, CRDF chief operating officer. “Two of the funded projects had a primary focus of addressing the increase in canker we have seen from the loss of streptomycin, a problem that has been likely exacerbated by OTC usage.
“We also funded a third project that finishes out the work on the leading candidate from the Bayer project. We have so much invested in this it didn’t make sense not to finish it out, especially since it seems to work equally well on canker and HLB.”
A new proposal dealing with the epidemiology of citrus black spot was funded. This proposal resulted from growers asking CRDF to not drop work on this subject from its research portfolio and to take a new look at the problem.
The board also continued funding the field site of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s transgenic-capable research. Funding was continued for Texas A&M’s Kranthi Mandadi’s project of injecting novel anti-HLB chemistries and OTC combinations.
“We also invited a full proposal on more non-GMO transgenic work and funded the large-scale field trial proposal from the Citrus Research and Field Trial program,” Dantzler said. “Finally, a small but intriguing proposal was funded which attempts to concentrate a small patch of intensive root growth so those roots can take up more of everything the tree might need. Early work on the concept has already been done, but now the challenge is developing a prototype that is something growers — not just scientists — can use.”
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