Project Number: 1920-22000-037-04
Project Type: Trust

Start Date: Nov 01, 2007
End Date: Oct 31, 2008

Objective:
The objectives are to culture the bacteria responsible for the Huanglongbing (HLB) disease of citrus and develop improved PCR-based detection assays. This research is described under CRIS objectives 1B, Developing a method to cultivate the HLB bacterium and 2B, Develop molecular techniques for identification of Liberabacter asiaticus, L. africanus, and L. americanus.

Approach:
For the first approach we will supplement various media designed for culturing fastidious bacteria with citrus extract. In a second approach we will determine the chemistry of citrus phloem and design special media based on metabolic pathways.