University of Florida scientists are joining forces at the Crop Transformation Center (CTC) to wage a high-tech war against pests and diseases threatening Florida’s crops – arming farmers with cutting-edge solutions to protect the state’s agricultural lifeblood.
The urgency to find a solution to citrus greening spawned interest to include citrus as an initial focus of the CTC.
The graphic below shows an oveview of the CTC.
Through the CTC, faculty at the main UF campus in Gainesville and at the Citrus Research and Education Center (CREC) in Lake Alfred are working to find citrus varieties that can tolerate or even resist citrus greening, also known as Huanglongbing.
The CTC was established three years ago by the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) and the state’s citrus industry.
“Our purpose is to use cutting-edge tools — like gene editing, precision breeding and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven data analysis — to create plants that are healthier, more productive and more resilient to challenges like disease and climate stress,” said Charlie Messina, director of the CTC and a UF/IFAS professor of horticultural sciences. “We use AI to study how proteins in bacteria and plants interact, so we can stop the bacteria from taking over the plant and messing up how it works.”
Researchers at the CTC are identifying key genes that give plants natural tolerance to greening, introducing those traits into new citrus varieties and testing them in collaboration with Florida growers. CTC scientists study genes to enhance the plant-immune system so it can defend itself against greening.
Drawing on expertise from Messina and others with deep industry experience, the center is rethinking the traditional academic research pipeline by streamlining each step to move discoveries from lab to field faster.
“Our ultimate goal is simply to accelerate innovation in agriculture, protect Florida’s signature crops — starting with citrus — and ensure that science in the lab leads to lasting impact in the grove,” Messina said.
Scientists at a few UF/IFAS research and education centers are working with their colleagues in Gainesville to deliver data to growers.
CREC, in Lake Alfred, already had two transformation labs, said center director Michael Rogers.
“Basically, the idea is to provide more resources to develop even more plants in a shorter amount of time that can be tested in the field,” Rogers said.
Rogers likens the approach of the CTC to a much-needed numbers game.
“The more shots on goal, the more likely you are to find a winner,” he said. “Those discoveries made in Gainesville will likely progress through the pipeline back and forth between Gainesville and CREC, which is better positioned to handle citrus transformations — at this time.”
Alfred Huo, a professor of horticultural sciences in Gainesville and a CTC-affiliated faculty member, is one of about a dozen UF/IFAS faculty members who focus solely on citrus greening.
“What’s particularly exciting is the potential for technology transfer,” Huo said. “While we benefit from CREC’s extensive citrus resources, our optimized transformation protocols can help CREC and other Florida citrus researchers produce both transgenic and gene-edited materials more efficiently and reliably.”
Many other CTC faculty are in Gainesville, where they use advanced technologies such as single cell sequencing, bioinformatics, and gene editing to design and create the trees of the future
In labs on the main UF campus, scientists study genes, develop new plant materials and create improved citrus lines — the stage of a developing plant when it starts showing new genetic traits.
When researchers see promising plants, those plants go to CREC, where scientists test them to see how well they grow, Messina said.
For now, they’re still in the research stage, so there are no finished products in growers’ hands yet.
“Once we confirm the tolerance to citrus greening, the improved plants will reach farmers through nurseries that provide young trees for planting,” Messina said. “The CTC, through its affiliated faculty in horticultural sciences, microbiology and cell science and plant pathology, has produced several promising transgenic lines with traits that show the plants might tolerate greening. Without overstating results, these plants represent meaningful progress toward developing new varieties for Florida growers.”
###
ABOUT UF/IFAS
The mission of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is to develop knowledge relevant to agricultural, human and natural resources and to make that knowledge available to sustain and enhance the quality of human life. With more than a dozen research facilities, 67 county Extension offices, and award-winning students and faculty in the UF College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, UF/IFAS brings science-based solutions to the state’s agricultural and natural resources industries, and all Florida residents.
1
