The objectives of this project are to produce disease resistant, commercially & agronomically acceptable, mature citrus transgenics & intragenics that will flower & fruit naturally using Agrobacterium & biolistics as a service for customers. The research components of this project are to increase transformation efficiency & to develop biolistic transformation protocols, so that the biotech products produced in our lab for research & commercialization require less federal deregulation. During this quarter, we identified two mature cultivars that have high transformation efficiency with Agrobacterium. In addition, we identified two citrus selectable markers that function well for intragenics. One hundred fifty transgenic shoots were produced & micrografted this quarter, of which 66 survived, 26 it is too soon to tell, & 58 died. We are losing transgenic shoots in micrografting & have hired someone new who will be trained in micrografting once the pandemic subsides. Thirty-five transgenics have already been secondary grafted. Currently UF labs have limitied return to work schedules as the Covid-19 pandemic in FL is peaking with increased cases & deaths. Our lab is still working in shifts. Once the pandemic subsides, we will hopefully return to a more normal work schedule with people able to work together in one lab. However wearing masks, social distancing & disinfecting surfaces are directives that we must follow in the workplace now. We are on track monetarily. Actually by year’s end, we will be slightly overspent in salaries, possibly due to raises paid to deserving staff members last year. Next quarter, the Mature Lab will test variables affecting biolistic transformation efficiency using Dr. Dutt’s all-citrus promoters & terminators to produce intragenic citrus. USDA APHIS BRS does not examine these trees in expensive, replicated field trials, because new federal regulations state that intragenic trees, without vector sequences, will be considered similar to trees produced through traditional plant breeding. In addition, we introduced OLL-20, which is a favorite of the juice industry, & we will determine if it does well in biolistic & Agrobacterium transformation experiments. OLL-8 is recalitrant in Agrobacterium transformation experiments, but it can be transformed with the gene gun. In contrast, OLL-4 does very well in Agrobacterium transformation & we have yet to test it with the gene gun.