1. Please state project objectives and what work was done this quarter to address them:
The objectives of this project are:
1, To study the effect of Brs on priming immunity on young, newly planted trees. This will allow to know for how long immune response will last after Br application, so we can adjust timing (number of applications).
2, To determine the best time of application (frequency) to achieve maximum protection against pests and disease in newly planted trees.
For both objectives, we are continuing the new set of trials: i) concentrate Br treatments in young trees only at the time of flushing; in this case, we applied the treatment during February flush. We are monitoring psyllid populations and collecting samples for Ct determination. ii) apply Br every other month. This has continued, and samples are being collected regularly for later analysis in the next quarter.
3, To determine the effect of Br application on advancing fruit maturation in both Valencia and Hamlin.
We finished, for this season, treatments in Valencia trees injected with OTC that show symptoms of canopy recovery but not significant improvement in fruit quality, to test if Br application can boost internal quality in the next season. As a reminder, this idea came after seeing this year that we get most of the Br effect on increasing Brix on trees with the best canopies (in our plots that are not treated with OTCs). This has been done at CPI in Felda. We incorporated a new delivery method (by drone delivery) to compare with our regular sprayer, to see if this is more efficient. We are collaborating with the engineers at SWFREC for this with no aditional cost. We harvested the fruit in early April, and we found an increase in Brix of less than 1 degree, still, it was significant: 8.85 in OTC only injected as compared to 9.7 in OTC injected+Brassinosteroid-treated. More importantly, pound solids in this case were 5.1 as compared to 3.2 in the OTC-only injected.
Outreach:
-SWFREC citrus field day, April 10.
2. Please state what work is anticipated for next quarter:
-We will finish all pending analysis, present results at FSHS and ASHS annual meetings in June and August and submit two papers now in preparation. A presentation at Citrus Expo in Tampa (August) is also planned and scheduled.
3. Please state budget status (underspend or overspend, and why):
This project was approved for 3rd year funding in July. We have reduced the budget in order to be more cost-efficient in this last year of the project. Spending is now on track