A researcher at UC Riverside is getting $1.7 million from the US Department of Agriculture to battle citrus greening, the grant, announced earlier this week. Ramadugu has been working on the citrus greening problem at UCR for 10 years. Prior to that, she was doing similar research for a company in Florida. She still does most of her field work in that state, since that's where the disease is most prevalent. Ramadugu and her team of scientists have developed the prototype of a trap that attracts only the citrus psyllid. She plans to use the trap, along with a newly developed testing device, to keep track of infected psyllids that may potentially infect trees in actively producing groves. The growers themselves will be trained to do the testing. Ramadugu said she plans to find five growers each in California and Texas, as well as some in Florida, and provide them with three traps each. A single psyllid is all that is needed for an effective test, but she's hoping many more will be captured. That way, researchers can get a better picture of what's happening in the psyllid population.The field test involves taking the captured psyllids and placing them in a holding medium for a few hours. After that they will be placed in the testing unit -- developed by a Hawaiian company -- which heats the insects to 80 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. They then will be placed in a test tube with some chemical reagents and allowed to sit for 15 to 20 minutes. If the bugs test positive for the disease, it will show up on a graph on the testing unit. If it’s positive, they go to a specialist lab to make sure that it’s correct. - Millet
