Grant Information
| Knowledge Area | Subject of Investigation | Field of Science | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 211 - Insects, Mites, and Other Arthropods Affecting Plants | 999 - Citrus, general/other | 1130 - Entomology and acarology | 100% |
Huanglongbing, also commonly known as citrus greening disease, is likely the most devastating disease that the US citrus industry has ever faced. Huanglongbing is a bacterial disease caused by the pathogen Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus and is vectored by the Asian citrus psyllid. The Huanglongbing disease-vector complex is multifaceted and difficult to manage, causing substantial economic hardship for citrus growers in every citrus producing state. Control and revitalization of organic citrus production will not be achieved by a single "silver bullet" technology and methods that are effective in conventional systems may not be suitable for organic systems. This OREI planning proposal will bring together organic citrus stakeholders including growers, scientists, industry, and educators to evaluate current methods used to combat Huanglongbing in organic groves, research priorities, and available technologies to inform the development of a large-scale and comprehensive research project that will provide farmers with organic compliant control strategies to combat citrus greening. The major goal of this proposal is to provide organic citrus growers with economical and sustainable methods to manage Huanglongbing. The specific objectives of this proposal are: 1) to gather information on current techniques being utilized by organic citrus producers to combat Huanglongbing; 2) to assess the target audience's priorities related to research on Huanglongbing control methods that are acceptable for use in organic and sustainable agriculture systems; 3) to determine research, outreach, and education needs for delivering Huanglongbing control recommendations to organic citrus growers across the country
Our long-term goals are to equip organic citrus growers with tools that will
Activities and methods: A needs assessment is proposed for organic citrus growers combating Huanglongbing. The study will quantify and characterize the current practices and needs of citrus growers using a survey and direct dialogue with focus groups and interviews with stakeholders. The project will culminate in a white paper. We have assembled multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, and multi-state advisory committee to guide the proposed project and extend our reach throughout the U.S. citrus community.The needs assessment will be conducted with four tasks; the target audience includes stakeholders, farmers and experts working in organic citrus production. The study will evaluate and characterize the needs of organic producers using a focus group and survey.Task 1: Central to the success of this proposal is ensuring sufficient and representative stakeholder input. As such, our first task is to convene our advisory committee composed of, diverse stakeholders and includes organic citrus producers, industry members that utilize organic citrus products, citrus experts and researchers from across the U.S. To date we have identified 14 advisory committee members. The advisory committee will meet a minimum of two times by webinar, with additional conference calls and email communication as needed to plan Task 2.Task 2: Advisory committee members will work collaboratively with Angella Jagiello to create a survey with the objective of assessing current methods being used by organic citrus growers to combat Huanglongbing and gather information on research and extension. The questionnaire will be sent to organic farmers belonging to national and state organizations. Participants will be asked about specific topics including the extent to which their groves are infected with Huanglongbing, use of monitoring protocols and preventative measures, types of treatment to combat infection, and where they get information for managing groves infected with or at risk for infection with Huanglongbing. Our survey will be publicized via listservs (e.g., organic farmer organizations, conferences, and newsletters), and members of the organizations involved in this proposal (e.g. Organic Center, CCOF, FOG, OTA). In the absence of a unique sample frame, i.e., list of the organic farmers to be drawn from, a non-probability sampling will be conducted in order to obtain a maximum number of participants. Participants will be invited to complete a web-based confidential survey and we aim to have a response rate of at least 20%.Task 3: Stakeholders and advisory committee members, identified in Task 1, will meet for a 1.5 day-long workshop at the US Horticultural Research Laboratory (USDA, ARS) in Ft. Pierce, Florida. The workshop will focus on 1) current preventative and treatment practices utilized by organic citrus growers 2) prioritization of Huanglongbing research needs and; 3) extension needs. The overall goal of this workshop is to gather information about how organic citrus growers in different regions of the U.S. are addressing Huanglongbing in their groves, and to determine needs and priorities for combating Huanglongbing in organic citrus. We will use this workshop to gain insight about the committee members' views on research needs to combat Huanglongbing, which will be pivotal in the development of a future large-scale proposal that directly addresses stakeholder needs.Task 4: Compilation of the data and communication of the findings with stakeholders: Qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to evaluate the survey data. A final report will be generated as a white paper, and distributed to all the participating stakeholders and the organic citrus community. This report will be used as the basis for a full OREI multi-regional proposal to follow our planning project.
Target Audience
Organic citrus producers, researchers and policy makers were the focus of our project. Details of some are listed below Growers/Industry Ben McLean is an organic citrus grower and Vice President of Uncle Matt's Organic. Uncle Matt's is the oldest organic orange juice in the United States and the State of Florida's largest organic citrus grower. Jeffrey Steen serves on the California Citrus Research Board as Chair for the California New Varieties Committee, Vice Chair for the Research Development and Implementation Committee, Chair for the Ad Hoc Science Review Process Improvement Committee and a member of the Priority Screening and Vectored Disease Committee Dr. Ramkrishnan Balasubramanian is the Interim Executive Director of Florida Organic Growers (FOG), a grassroots, non-profit corporation established in 1987 to promote organic and sustainable agriculture. FOG is well connected with citrus farmers across the state. Rick Kress is President of Southern Citrus Gardens. Southern Citrus Gardens is one of the largest growers and suppliers of 100% pure not-from-concentrate orange juice and is dedicated to environmentally friendly farming. Cathy Calfo is the Executive Director of California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), a non-profit organic certification agency, advocacy organization, and charitable foundation which advocates on behalf of over 3,000 organic farms and processors across the U.S. Scott Mabs is the Chief Executive Officer of Homegrown Organic Farms which has been marketing and selling organic citrus since 1998 and represents over 30 different organic citrus growers in California. Garff Hathcock is the Organic Division Manager for Corona College Heights Orange and Lemon Association, a 115-year-old citrus packing cooperative based in California. Dennis Holbrook is the President of South Texas Organics, the largest organic citrus operation in Texas. Education/Extension Sonia Rios is Subtropical Horticulture Farm Advisory at the University of California Cooperative Extension-Riverside. Ben Faber is Farm Advisor in the University of California Cooperative Extension for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties where the dominant crop is citrus. Researchers Dr. Carolyn Slupsky, Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Slupsky's work focuses on the impact of agricultural practices and pathogen infection on tree metabolism. Dr. Reza Ehsani is a Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering in the School of Engineering, University of California, Merced, CA. His research area has been focused on developing engineering tools and techniques for citrus production including developing heat treatment systems for Huanglongbing infected citrus trees. Policy Gwendolyn Wyard is the Regulatory Director of Organic Standards and Food Safety, Organic Trade Association
Changes / Problems
COVID-19 situation changed our plans of in-person meeting and we resorted to a virtual workshop on "Organic HLB Control"
Training & Professional Development
Several meetings and a workshop provided opportunities for the stakeholders to discuss in detail the situation regarding the management of huanglongbing particularly under organic production systems and understand the future needs.
Dissemination Streams
Written details of the discussions from the meetings were summarized and distributed to the stakeholders in the emails. Stakeholders' suggestions on the management of the huanglongbing were very helpful andincorporated in the stakeholder survey whichwas distributed electronically. Findings from the stakeholders survey were presented to them by the Project Director in the "Organic HLB Control" workshop and incorporated in the OREI grant submitted to NIFA.
Next Reporting Steps
Submit the OREI grant entitled ""Systems approach to organic management of the Asian citrus psyllid." which is the primary vector of the huanglongbing disease, will be submitted to NIFA in 2022.
Target Audience
Growers/Industry Ben McLean is an organic citrus grower and Vice President of Uncle Matt's Organic. Uncle Matt's is the oldest organic orange juice in the United States and the State of Florida's largest organic citrus grower. Jeffrey Steen serves on the California Citrus Research Board as Chair for the California New Varieties Committee, Vice Chair for the Research Development and Implementation Committee, Chair for the Ad Hoc Science Review Process Improvement Committee and a member of the Priority Screening and Vectored Disease Committee Dr. Ramkrishnan Balasubramanian is the Interim Executive Director of Florida Organic Growers (FOG), a grassroots, non-profit corporation established in 1987 to promote organic and sustainable agriculture. FOG is well connected with citrus farmers across the state. Rick Kress is President of Southern Citrus Gardens. Southern Citrus Gardens is one of the largest growers and suppliers of 100% pure not-from-concentrate orange juice and is dedicated to environmentally friendly farming. Cathy Calfo is the Executive Director of California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), a non-profit organic certification agency, advocacy organization, and charitable foundation which advocates on behalf of over 3,000 organic farms and processors across the U.S. Scott Mabs is the Chief Executive Officer of Homegrown Organic Farms which has been marketing and selling organic citrus since 1998 and represents over 30 different organic citrus growers in California. Garff Hathcock is the Organic Division Manager for Corona College Heights Orange and Lemon Association, a 115-year-old citrus packing cooperative based in California. Dennis Holbrook is the President of South Texas Organics, the largest organic citrus operation in Texas. Education/Extension Sonia Rios is Subtropical Horticulture Farm Advisory at the University of California Cooperative Extension-Riverside. Ben Faber is Farm Advisor in the University of California Cooperative Extension for Ventura and Santa Barbara counties where the dominant crop is citrus. Researchers Dr. Carolyn Slupsky, Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Slupsky's work focuses on the impact of agricultural practices and pathogen infection on tree metabolism. Dr. Reza Ehsani is a Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering in the School of Engineering, University of California, Merced, CA. His research area has been focused on developing engineering tools and techniques for citrus production including developing heat treatment systems for Huanglongbing infected citrus trees. Policy Gwendolyn Wyard is the Regulatory Director of Organic Standards and Food Safety, Organic Trade Association
Changes / Problems
COVID-19 situation changed our plans of in-person meeting and we resorted to a virtual meeting
Training & Professional Development
Several meetings provided opportunities for the stakeholders to discuss in detail the situation regarding the management of huanglongbing particularly under organic production systems and understand the future needs.
Dissemination Streams
Written details of the disussions from the meetings were distributed to the stakeholders in the emails. Stakeholders suggestions on the management of the huanglongbing were very helpful andincorporated in the stakeholder survey whichwas distributed electronically.
Next Reporting Steps
Plan a virtual workshop on "Organic HLB Control" and discuss the research priorities for OREI research grant on organic management of HLB. <br><br>
<br>What was accomplished under these goals? We were able to develop a detailed survey on the management of HLB for the organic citrus producing stakeholders which was distributed electronically. This survey incorporated questions and options on the management of huanglongbing or citrus greening disease and its vector Asain citrus psyllidwhich was based on the detailed discussion with the stakeholders in several meetings . Survey was distributed to the stakeholders to gather information on the organic management of this disease and assess the research priorities that can be proposed in an OREI grant. <br><br><b>Publications</b><br>