More than 300,000 CRISPR-edited citrus trees are being planted this year that have shown great potential against citrus greening disease in test groves. CRISPR, which stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, is a gene-editing technology to help citrus growers produce a crop amid the disease. The Florida citrus industry is eager to see how these trees will respond in real-world commercial settings.
“We’re going to plant, through our funding this year, over 300,000 CRISPR-edited trees through our program,” said Citrus Research and Field Trial (CRAFT) Foundation Executive Director Steven Hall. “The growers are excited about doing this. Through our funding partners — the state legislature and others — we’re able to put this investment into growers and continue to go forward.”
Hall spoke about CRAFT program successes during the recent Florida Citrus Show in Fort Pierce.
“I can’t wait to see what these trees look like,” said Hall. “They look great in the test groves right now, but I want to see them in the real world and under commercial conditions to see what our growers can do with them.”
Florida’s citrus industry has needed an answer to citrus greening following more than two decades of the state’s trees being decimated by the disease. Producers just need to know if the CRISPR-edited trees will thrive in a non-research setting.
“It’s the edge of the sword, trying to figure out what’s working and what’s not,” Hall said. “These are the varieties that are newly released out of research institutions and others that have been designed to either be resistant or completely not impacted by HLB.
“We’re able to work with the growers and incentivize their participation in planting those trees so they can actually put them in the ground and see what they look like in these real-world conditions and know if they are truly the future of the Florida citrus industry.”
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