CAP: Fast Selection, Assessment, And Delivery Of HLB-Resistant/ Tolerant Citrus Variants as New Scion And Rootstock Cultivars

Project Deliverables

1. A new assay to evaluate the resistance of citrus variants using a simultaneous multi-strain inoculation strategy and an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA)-based method to assess performance uniformity. A number of variant citrus plants from seedlings and bud sports with greater HLB tolerance/resistance.

2. Genome assemblies of five resistant/tolerant and five susceptible siblings of representative plants and their parents, HLB resistance/tolerance or susceptibility-related segment deletions, copy number variations (CNVs), structural variations (SVs), SNPs, and indels in each citrus line, A citrus pangenome by integrating our previous with newly sequenced genomes and applying the pangenome to identify genes with moderate/high impact variants.

3. New ‘Duncan’ grapefruit and Kuharske citrange mutants with high frequencies of loss-of-function mutations in four disease-susceptibility genes. Identification of best target gene(s) for editing in commercial citrus cultivars.

4. Field evaluations of 6 selections in Florida and Texas and 3 in California to monitor HLB tolerance and horticultural performance. Economic analysis of new developed cultivar.