Grove-First: A Generalizable Framework to Evaluate Translational Solutions to Citrus Greening and Other Perennial Crop Diseases

Citrus greening disease, also known as huanglongbing (HLB), is the most serious vector-borne bacterial disease of citrus worldwide and an emblematic case of perennial crop decline due to insect vector-borne disease. There is an immediate global need to provide the citrus industry with relief from HLB and a return to profitable citrus production. Discovery of HLB treatments typically involve various laboratory-based assays, which then advance to greenhouse and eventually field testing in a workflow that takes multiple years. We present a field-forward experimental framework, "Grove-First", that reverses the traditional laboratory-to-field pipeline by prioritizing outcome-based screening. Grove-First rapidly screens and validates treatments with regulatory-friendly profiles in commercial citrus groves using trunk injection to select treatments that improve tree health and fruit yield over the course of a single growing season. The Grove-First framework represents a generalizable systems approach for translational agricultural research, applicable to perennial crops where disease impact, long development timelines, and real-world variability demand in-field, outcome-based screening. Using this framework, we identified candidate treatments with effects comparable to or better than the standard oxytetracycline (OTC) on visual tree-health and/or yield indices in an initial screen of HLB-positive 8-year-old Valencia sweet orange trees. Expanded trials in commercial citrus groves allowed us to validate the initial screening results at other locations and in other citrus varieties. Grove-First rapidly accelerated the identification and large-scale field testing of HLB therapies, some of which are available for growers to use immediately and others that require further field testing and/or regulatory actions.

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Publication Details

Journal
Plant Disease
Published
2025-10-28
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1094/pdis-07-25-1379-re
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Phytoplasmas and Hemiptera pathogens
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
1.75
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article

Grove-First: A Generalizable Framework to Evaluate Translational Solutions to Citrus Greening and Other Perennial Crop Diseases

Randall P. Niedz, Linda Rae Bennett, Alejandro Olmedo-Velarde, Tom D’Elia et al.
1 citations
Plant Disease
Phytoplasmas and Hemiptera pathogens
1.75
article

Grove-First: A Generalizable Framework to Evaluate Translational Solutions to Citrus Greening and Other Perennial Crop Diseases

Randall P. Niedz, Linda Rae Bennett, Alejandro Olmedo-Velarde, Tom D’Elia, Samuel T. Coradetti, Michelle Heck, Guilherme Locatelli, Lynn M. Johnson, Lukas M. Hallman, John-Paul Fox, Douglas Stuehler, Mark A. Ritenour, Brian T. Scully, Adriana Larrea-Sarmiento, Robert G. Shatters, Ariana Makar, Lorenzo Rossi, Nicholas R. Larson, Luke Thompson, Victoria Blake, Marco Pitino, James Hoffman, Robert A. Adair, Nursena Demirden, Frank Giles, Joanne Hodge, Loushendy Ulysse, Lisvet Ramirez-Barrera, Riley McKenna, Samantha Barkee, Chase Weeks-Purdy, Ketan Shende, Ellen Cochrane, W. Cody Estes, Flavia Tabay
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Citrus greening disease, also known as huanglongbing (HLB), is the most serious vector-borne bacterial disease of citrus worldwide and an emblematic case of perennial crop decline due to insect vector-borne disease. There is an immediate global need to provide the citrus industry with relief from HLB and a return to profitable citrus production. Discovery of HLB treatments typically involve various laboratory-based assays, which then advance to greenhouse and eventually field testing in a workflow that takes multiple years. We present a field-forward experimental framework, "Grove-First", that reverses the traditional laboratory-to-field pipeline by prioritizing outcome-based screening. Grove-First rapidly screens and validates treatments with regulatory-friendly profiles in commercial citrus groves using trunk injection to select treatments that improve tree health and fruit yield over the course of a single growing season. The Grove-First framework represents a generalizable systems approach for translational agricultural research, applicable to perennial crops where disease impact, long development timelines, and real-world variability demand in-field, outcome-based screening. Using this framework, we identified candidate treatments with effects comparable to or better than the standard oxytetracycline (OTC) on visual tree-health and/or yield indices in an initial screen of HLB-positive 8-year-old Valencia sweet orange trees. Expanded trials in commercial citrus groves allowed us to validate the initial screening results at other locations and in other citrus varieties. Grove-First rapidly accelerated the identification and large-scale field testing of HLB therapies, some of which are available for growers to use immediately and others that require further field testing and/or regulatory actions.

Plant Disease
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (US), Agricultural Research Service (US), Iowa State University (US), Cornell University (US), Florida Department of Citrus (US), AdventHealth Sebring (US), New York State College of Agriculture & Life Sciences (US), Orthopaedic Center of Vero Beach (US), Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory (US), Citrus Research International (ZA), Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga Board of Cooperative Educational Services (US), Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture & Health (US), Plant (United States) (US), U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory (US), Statistical Research (United States) (US), Indian River State College (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 12%
Phytoplasmas and Hemiptera pathogens
1.75
DOISourceOpenAlex
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