The 12th Citrus Research Symposium has highlighted internationally recognised research that is helping secure southern Africa’s citrus industry against threats of disease and pests while making top technical knowledge and services available to growers. This is Part 2 of a two-part series.
CRI research entomologist Aruna Manrakhan said information on plant diseases and pests might seem highly technical or obscure “but when you know that so many jobs and income depend on keeping citrus healthy, then it places it all in context”.
“For instance, at the symposium a researcher calculated that it costs the citrus industry R386 million per year to counter the fruit fly. Always improving is an economic imperative,” Manrakhan said.
Another topic of keen discussion was Huanglongbing (HLB), also known as Asian Citrus Greening. Southern Africa is completely free of the disease, but it has recently devastated citrus industries in some other major citrus production regions in the world, including Florida.
Details of the CRI’s partnership with the University of Florida on HLB-resistant rootstock were presented at the symposium.
“Breeding disease-resistant rootstocks takes time, but research on HLB resistance is looking promising. South Africa has time to prepare methods that can successfully avoid the HLB nightmare that has taken place in other countries and maintain production of export-quality fruit,” said Dr Paul Cronjé, citriculture portfolio manager at CRI.
Working alongside the South African government to bolster biosecurity and market access is an important priority for CRI, together with enabling citrus growers to sustainably provide top quality citrus fruit to global consumers. The CRI currently funds and coordinates 131 active research projects and operates a wide-ranging research partnership model that encompasses 22 local and international research collaborations.
Source: FLWN