An advisory committee of Florida citrus growers has agreed to the recommendation of continued research into huanglongbing, or citrus greening, the incurable disease that has severely hit the state's valuable citrus industry.
At a meeting at the Citrus Research and Education Centre on Tuesday (26 January), the committee recommended that funds should be generated to cover 24 new multi-year research projects studying both greening bacteria and the Asian citrus psyllid, The Ledger reported.
The projects would cost an estimated US$2.1m (€1.5m) during the first year, on top of the US$16.2m (€11.5m) that previously approved projects will cost in the first year, and the US$13.2m (€9.3m) that these same projects will cost in the second year.
Before they can be confirmed, the recommendations must be reviewed by the Citrus Research and Development Foundation's board of directors, with any money allocated coming from the Florida Department of Citrus and the proceeds of a US$0.01 research tax that growers pay on each harvested citrus box.
Indeed, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services reported in December that Florida citrus growers had overwhelminglybacked the continuation of the state order that funds research intodisease, following a referendum on the so called 'box tax' that was first introduced in 1991.
The greening research programme has received 72 proposals for new research projects since August, with 38 of these recommended for consideration by a National Academy of science panel.
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