1. Please state project objectives and what work was done this quarter to address them: This report is for the third quarter of year 1 of Project 21-002C – Continued Support for the Southern Gardens Diagnostic Laboratory. This project provides HLB testing for resarchers, growers and homeowners. A total of 9,118 samples were run during this 3 month-period. All samples were plant samples, mostly from large scale research trials. To date 24,704 samples have been run. It is expected that we will be close to the budgeted amount of 28,750 samples for the end of year 1. During this quarter, the lab experienced some technical difficulties which were resolved by working with Dr. Ozgur Batuman’s lab by running comparison samples. The problem was traced to using EDTA in the elution buffer. Although the elution methodology has been the same for years, for some unknown reason it became an issue. Suppliers of the affected samples were notified and the problem was corrected. It is suspected that the supplier of the master mix changed their formulation which resulted in the inhibition by EDTA (which has been reported in the literature as a potential inhibitor of PCR reactions). The lab operations are back on track at this time. 2. Please state what work is anticipated for next quarter: It is expected that the number of samples will slow down for the last quarter of year 1 as this is the time of year when symptoms are not evident and the titer of the bacterium in the plant declines. 3. Please state budget status (underspend or overspend, and why): Based on current projections, it is expected that the lab will be on target for the budgeted amount of samples for year 1 (budget=28,750)