The May All In For Citrus podcast features highlights from a recent OJ Break hosted by the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Citrus Research and Education Center (CREC) in Lake Alfred.

Podcast host Frank Giles caught up with Michael Rogers, CREC director, during the event. Rogers summarized some of the information presented at the OJ Break, including a talk by Nian Wang, UF/IFAS professor and Graves Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Biotechnology, on his work to develop a CRISPR citrus tree with resistance to HLB.

Wang has already engaged with the regulatory agencies required to get a CRISPR tree approved for commercial use by growers. Those agencies include the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Rogers said the good news is a CRISPR tree is not a transgenic genetically modified plant, which means the regulatory process is easier to navigate. When a tree is proven to work in real-world grove conditions, it can be moved to growers more quickly. But Rogers added it will take time to identify the right tree.

In addition, Wang discussed an observation he made during his research on letting some rootstock shoots grow up into the canopy of the tree. Some rootstocks have proven to be more tolerant to HLB.

“Studies have shown that the root-die off from HLB is caused by carbohydrate starvation, because the plant is not moving the carbohydrates down to roots from the leaves,” Rogers explained.

Wang observed that the rootstock shoots act as a means to move carbohydrates down to the roots. This could help sustain roots in HLB-infected trees.

“I want to be clear this an observation and not a recommendation from UF/FAS,” Rogers said. “But it might spark some ideas with growers as it did today with the OJ Break audience. And that’s a fact that some of our rootstocks are very tolerant to HLB on their own.”

Also discussed in the May episode of All In For Citrus is managing the growing problem with snails in citrus as well as survey results on grower attitudes toward trunk injection of oxytetracycline. The podcast is a partnership between UF/IFAS and AgNet Media.