An integrated approach for establishment of new citrus plantings faced with the HLB threat

An integrated approach for establishment of new citrus plantings faced with the HLB threat

Report Date: 10/01/2015
Project: 910   Year: 2015
Category: ACP Vector
Author: Charles A Powell
Sponsor: Citrus Research and Development Foundation

This overall 3 year project was focused on determining the optimum combination of chemotherapy, thermotherapy, and nutrient therapy that can be registered for use in field citrus and control HLB. In this quarter (July 2015 to September 2015), we continue to evaluate 1) the effect of Pen and SD on control of HLB disease by gravity bag infusion in the field; 2) the efficiency of effective chemical compounds (Pen, SDX, Pcy and Carv) against HLB disease by gravity bag infusion; 3) the effectiveness of a combination of chemotherapy, thermotherapy and nutrient therapy against HLB in the field trials. The chemical compounds (Pen and EBI-602) and additional nutrients were applied to the heat-treated citrus for two times by foliage spray, using our optimized nano-delivery system. The preliminary results showed that these integrated treatments improved the citrus growth and lessened the Las bacterial titers in the treated HLB-affected citrus trees. In this quarter, we tried to optimize and develop another new formulation for trunk-painting. The new formulation had lower viscosity, and was stable after heat treatment at 40 C and cold treatment at -20 C. When this formulation was applied on citrus trees in the field, it stuck to the citrus trunk while showing no phytotoxicity to the trunk or leaves of the treated citrus. In next quarter, the effective antibiotic Pen will be prepared in this formulation for evaluating delivery efficiency and therapeutic efficiency of Pen against HLB disease. EBI-602 and Pen prepared in this formulation will be applied on HLB-affected citrus by trunk-painting in the field.


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