Establishment of a Virus Cleaning Service for Horticultural Crops

The goal of this project is to develop and deploy an innovative virus elimination platform service for horticultural crops addressing a critical need for a reliable virus cleaning service within the horticulture industry. Our main objective is to test and assess multiple virus elimination strategies including variations of thermotherapy cryotherapy chemotherapy microshoot tip culture and combination therapies in five different crops; identify best treatment regimen for each crop; and establish recommended internal protocols for virus elimination in each crop based on the results. Our platform would be the first of its kind to offer a tailored solution to removal of viruses from growers' valuable planting material. Viral infections result in significant economic losses and threaten crop diversity. Growers often work with high-value proprietary heritage and/or heirloom varieties that cannot be easily replaced if infected. In such cases virus cleaning is the only viable option to salvage these unique resources. In recent years the demand for virus cleaning services has intensified especially in the wake of recent crop viral epidemics and existing options for virus cleaning are severely limited both technologically and in terms of throughput. Our project addresses the urgent need for a highly advanced efficient and readily available virus elimination service providing growers with a useful tool to protect their crop varieties. In doing so this project directly aligns with the priority of Plant Production and Protection (Biology) and represents a crucial step toward ensuring the resilience and sustainability of horticultural crop production and the future of food security.