UF/IFAS Scientist to Work with Team Developing New Greening-Tolerant Citrus

When Nian Wang pieces together sequences of genes, he hopes to make citrus varieties that are more tolerant to the deadly disease known as greening, which has devastated a multibillion dollar-a-year industry in Florida.

Wang, a professor of microbiology and cell science with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, will help an investigation in which researchers take the best genes from one plant and transfer them into another. With that combination, Wang and the research team believe they’ll move closer to growers’ goal of citrus that copes better with greening.

Scientists from the University of California-Davis are leading the $4 million project, which is being funded by the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, part of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, an arm of the USDA. Wang is one of several investigators on the project.

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