New Context for Understanding Citrus Greening Renews Commitment to Finding a Viable Solution

Sometimes in science, a new perspective brings an “a ha!” moment. That’s what one senior researcher at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences believes happened with his latest research on Huanglongbing (HLB), or citrus greening.

HLB is a worldwide, devastating citrus disease caused by Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), a bacterium that settles into the tree’s phloem — its interior vascular system — eventually killing the tree. Since first found in Florida in 2005, it has infected virtually every grove in Florida and cost the citrus industry billions of dollars.

UF/IFAS’ Nian Wang’s most recent research describes in detail how HLB causes damage to citrus trees and presents the case that HLB is a pathogen-triggered immune disease. A pathogen-triggered immune disease is a disease that results from the activation of an organism’s immune cells fighting a pathogen (a virus, bacteria, or parasite) that invades an organism, in this case, the citrus plant.

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