Location: Horticultural Crops Research
Project Number: 2072-21220-003-32-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2019
End Date: Sep 30, 2020
Objective:
1. Develop improved virus elimination procedures for the berry crops.
2. Perform virus elimination therapy and produce virus-tested material.
3. Add to the foundation block in screenhouse with virus-tested plants.
4. Maintain Controlled Import Permit to bring materials into the U.S. for complete testing and release.
5. Maintain virus permits for berry virus collection.
6. Inform nurseries and growers about clean plant activities and promote clean plants and the National Clean Plant Network (NCPN) activities through a website to reach out to a broader audience, including stakeholders throughout the U.S.
Approach:
The approach to this research project is to coordinate the development and adoption of standardized High Throughput Screening (HTS) technologies for the detection of viral diseases. A standardized protocol will be validated for use as an official test method. This standardized protocol will increase the efficiency of diagnostic units and improve the quality of results. Added benefits of a standardized protocol include optimal use of resources, reduction in the duplication of efforts, and providing a method to share material, protocols, and information. Specifically, the protocol would include details on sample collection, nucleic acid preparation, and library construction. Common bioinformatics pipelines will be adapted or developed, protocols will be validated by inter-laboratory comparisons, and reference sequence data will be added to GenBank. Viral diseases are major agricultural economic problem and the establishment of standardized protocols is vital to protect agricultural production in the U.S.
