PRE-HLB
The aim is to develop and implement a holistic contingency plan to protect the citrus sector in the EU from HLB disease drivers and to co-create new solutions to manage the disease through a multidisciplinary approach and in collaboration with experienced partners from America and Asia
This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement nº 817526
In one click
The EU citriculture is threatened by an emerging disease called Huanglongbing (HLB). This is currently considered the most devastating citrus disease due to: its rapid dispersal, severity and fast progression of symptoms; huge losses in fruit production and quality, cost and difficulty of preventing new infections, and lack of resistant citrus varieties and economically feasible treatments for infected trees. EU is at risk because the vector T. erytreae has been detected and is spreading in Spain and Portugal.
HLB can reduce citrus production by 61 %, which entails an economic annual loss in EU orange, mandarin and lemon production of 34.35, 17.46 and 7.4M euros, respectively. HLB disease poses a threat to more than 516 million trees throughout EU. HLB social impact will be huge, only considering the Spanish sector it would involve the loss of more than 100,000 jobs. PRE-HLB expects to reduce the above-mentioned impacts by 40%.
