Citrus Greening Symposium Published on the Plant Management Network
ST. PAUL, Minn., Jan. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Huanglongbing (HLB), or Citrus Greening Disease, a major threat native to Asia, has rapidly globalized in recent years, devastating citrus crops in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and other parts of the world.
In December 2008, the international research community responded to this threat by inviting colleagues, regulatory agency representatives, and commercial industry leaders to Orlando, Florida, so they could exchange the latest information, knowledge, ideas and concepts related to Citrus Greening.
A comprehensive 420-page proceedings of this meeting, called the International Research Conference on Huanglongbing, has been published for online public viewing on the Plant Management Network (PMN) website.
The theme of this conference was Reaching Beyond Boundaries," said Tim Gottwald, Ph.D., research leader and plant pathologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service and co-chair of the Conference organizing committee. "It indicates the combined determination of the group and need to reach beyond political, scientific, and national boundaries in an attempt to find commercially feasible solutions to this devastating disease."
The proceedings, which attracted 427 participants from 27 countries, contained nearly 150 papers from 14 sessions. The papers feature reports, case studies, research findings, summaries, and perspectives on many aspects of the disease.
Session titles include "Detection and Diagnosis;" "Epidemiology;" "Economics, Fruit Quality, Crop Loss;" and "Management Strategies."
The proceedings also include keynote lectures from noted international Citrus Greening experts, key take-home messages, a survey of research priorities from participants, agendas, and more.
These proceedings can be found at www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/hlb, where viewers can access papers individually or as a single .pdf file.
"Huanglongbing is the most devastating and feared disease of citrus," said Gottwald. "This disease and its vector, the Asian citrus psyllid, are unfortunate examples of unintentional but devastating introductions that threaten the continued existence of commercial and residential citrus. Without new technologies resulting in improved disease control, many citrus industries worldwide stand a chance of becoming nonviable due to HLB. These proceedings represent a dedication by the international research community to rapidly generate, validate, and disseminate such new technologies before it is too late."
Plant Management Network, is a nonprofit publisher of applied plant science resources. PMN is jointly managed by the American Phytopathological Society, Crop Science Society of America, and American Society of Agronomy.
SOURCE Plant Management Network
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