The Citrus Research and Development Foundation’s annual meeting looked at newly supported citrus greening research.
While Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) Chief Financial Officer Rick Dantzler said that the Florida citrus industry is “still going in the wrong direction” during the Florida Citrus Mutual’s annual meeting in June in regards to citrus greening, he did finish with optimism about new on-going citrus greening research. His remarks on the state of the Florida citrus industry were shared in a Citrus Industry article. Explore the latest information on CRDF’s most recent efforts to combat citrus greening.
Citrus Greening Research
Dantzler began his presentation with zero sugar-coating concerning the state of the Florida citrus industry. “We cannot act as though our research has been more successful than it has been,” Dantzler said, according to the article, after discussing the reduction of the Florida citrus industry from 451,100 acres to 351,057 acres, 8,000 growers to 2,500 growers, and 133.7 million boxes to 51.7 million boxes of citrus.
However, Dantzler did maintain he believes CRDF has the potential to “eradicate HLB or make it functionally irrelevant.” New citrus greening research that CRDF has given funding to that gives Dantzler optimism includes “peptides; reforms the CRDF has recently made in its plant improvement efforts; and its large-scale rootstock and scion trials.”
Dantzler maintained “We are not there to support the Research-Industrial Complex. We are there to solve a problem.”
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