Two students were successfully recruited to work on the project during the present reporting period, March 15 – June 15, 2019. Mr. Chad Vosburg has accepted an offer of admission as a M.S. degree student in the Penn State Department of Plant Pathology graduate program. He has experience working with HLB and is currently involved in HLB research as a technician. Chad will begin his studies in August, 2019 and will be working on the citrus infection and HLB disease measurement parts of the project. Mr. Jeremy Held, who was rotating in the PI’s lab starting in Februrary, 2019, has elected to stay in the PI’s lab as a Ph.D. student in the Intercollege Graduate Program in Plant Biology at Penn State. Jeremy will be working on the tree molecular characterization objectives of the project. Jeremy has already successfully detected the FT-scFv protein by protein gel immunoblotting and verified the pollen viability of trees producing the FT-scFv protein. Personnel to complete this project are now in place. The PI visited the lab of collaborator Dr. Tim Gottwald at the United States Horticultural Research Laboratory (USHRL) in Fort Pierce, Florida, on June 10 – 11, 2019. Chad Vosburg, who is from the nearby area, was also able to be present for part of these meetings. The current status of existing trees was determined, and a plan was developed by Drs. McNellis and Gottwald and Mr. Vosburg and Mr. Earl Taylor (Gottwald Lab research assistant) for tree propagations that were needed and setting up a series of HLB resistance tests. It was determined that at least 4 of the FT-scFv lines had sufficient numbers of trees available to set up a test immediately. It was determined that Chad would best work at USHRL as a “guest” to expedite his starting work on the project at the USHRL. We plan to initiate plant propagations and one HLB resistance experiment run during the next reporting period, prior to Chad’s formal beginning of studies. Chad will be able to participate in this work in part due to his close proximity to the USHRL this summer.