National
Citrus
Nursery
Association
NCNA
October 3 & 4, 2022 International Congress on Citrus Nurseries.
Below you will find the video recording of all presentations made at the 2022 CCNS/ISCN Congress held in Visalia on October 3rd and 4th.
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Below the Youtube video's is information on each speaker, a summary of each talk, and the PDF document for each presentation.
Day 1, 2022 Congress video and PDF presentations material
October 3, 2022
Day 1: International Congress on Citrus Nurseries.
Day 1 Material
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Industry 4.0.
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Gabriel Youtsey, Keynote
Gabriel (Gabe) Youtsey serves as the Chief Information Officer for UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. He provides leadership to UC ANR’s information technology unit to support programmatic, educational, administrative, and marketing-oriented projects. One of his goals is to accelerate the pace of innovation and industry adoption of new technologies to create sustainable growth and improve the profitability of the CA agriculture industry. Youtsey believes that to help secure California's place as a global leader, organizations, universities, and companies will need to embrace what is called Industry 4.0., an industry embracing the internet of things, artificial intelligence, big data, and more. He will give an in-depth overview of his work and collaborative projects.
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​Talk 1 - Smart Production Nursery - Australia Smart Farming Project.
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Wayne Parr, Golden Grove Nursery, Australia.
Wayne and his wife, Sue, own two businesses in Australia that deal with managing new fruit varieties and growing commercial citrus and fruit trees. Wayne has over 40 years of experience as a commercial grower and is well-versed in horticulture and agriculture.
Golden Grove Nursery is part of a project funded by National Landcare Program and Hort Innovation to develop tools to improve efficiency and reduce barriers to Best Management Practices adoption for Australian horticultural businesses. The project includes pilot smart farms for bananas, vegetables, nursery, and avocados in different locations across Queensland.
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Talk 2 - Integrating Data for Tree Crop Modeling Under Climate Change.
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Alessandro Ossola UC Davis, USA.
Dr. Ossola is an Assistant Professor in Urban Plant Science at UC Davis, with research focusing on climate change, forestry, water management, and food production. He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and Macquarie University in Sydney, and a former US National Academy of Sciences Associate with US-EPA in Cincinnati.
Climate change poses a threat to tree crops, including citrus, in many areas. Ossola's work with Hort Innovation Australia uses a multidisciplinary approach combining physiological and biogeographic data to predict how tree species may be impacted by climate stressors by the end of the century. Big data and artificial intelligence can help with climate predictions and identifying opportunities and threats to crop production.
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Talk 3 - Manipulating Light and Temperature in the Nursery to Improve Budbreak and Growth During Winter.
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Rayane Barcelos Bisi, USDA ARS Fort Pierce, Florida, USA.
Dr. Rayane Bisi is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with nine years of experience in plant propagation studies. Dr. Kim Bowman is a USDA research geneticist focused on breeding new citrus rootstocks and has also worked with citrus propagation. Dr. Ute Albrecht is an Associate Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Florida with over 15 years of experience in citrus research.
Dr. Rayane Bisi and Dr. Kim Bowman conducted studies on the effects of greenhouse heat and supplemental light on budbreak and citrus tree growth in the winter nursery. They studied Valencia orange and Washington Navel orange budded on different rootstocks and presented their findings. Current studies focus on Washington Navel orange budded on Carrizo citrange and Rubidoux trifoliate and include comparisons of daylength extension to night interruption and the effects of different light spectra.​
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Talk 4 - Optimization of soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics-microbes interaction using agri-food waste by-products.
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Deborah Pagliaccia, UC Riverside and California Citrus Nursery Society CCNS Executive Director
Citrus nurseries have a vital role in supporting CA's $3.6 billion citrus industry. Nevertheless, the California citrus nurseries are facing multiple challenges and over the years had to adapt to the industry's needs and change production practices, while facing mounting pressure to adopt sustainable solutions within the global market.
Dr Pagliaccia, presented her work on the beneficial use of Ag and food waste byproducts, to enhance beneficial native citrus microbiome and positively impact soil/potting soil carbon, nitrogen, and improve nutrient dynamics.
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Talk 5 Accelerating Growth and Treating Disease via Metabolic Modeling of Citrus.
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James Borneman, UC Riverside, USA.
James Borneman is a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology at UC Riverside. Research areas include microbiome and molecular biology of cyst nematodes, HLB, and citrus.
Borneman introduces the first metabolic model of citrus, which is a mathematical representation of all the pathways and reactions in a cell. This model can help accelerate growth in different situations, including the citrus engineering process and treatments for HLB.
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Talk 6 - Global Trends in Citrus Varieties.
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Graham Barry, XLnT Citrus, South Africa.
Dr. Graham Barry has been involved in the South African Citrus Industry for the past 32 years, and is the owner of XLnT Citrus, a company focusing on the development and implementation of novel and innovative citrus products and services, and provides independent technical and strategic consultation services to stakeholders in the Citrus Industry.
New mandarin cultivars continue to be developed and released from citrus breeding programs around the world and are gradually making an impact on global citrus trends, but adaptability to climatic conditions remains a challenge. Grapefruit production in the different production regions of the world is typically dominated by specific varieties, e.g. Star Ruby in South Africa and Israel, Rio Red in Turkey and Texas, and although new variety development can be seen in Florida (FL-904 grapefruit-pummelo hybrid with low FCs) and Texas (Texas Red grapefruit), there has been relatively little recent innovation in new grapefruit cultivars. Lemons and limes continue to be dominated by the established cultivars, although seedless lemons (Eureka Seedless) from South Africa and Australia have started to make in-roads. New orange variety development is driven by the selection of natural mutations and is thus a slow, step-wise process; various late-maturing Navel orange selections are being planted, while among Valencia oranges, local selections largely predominate.
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Talk 7. Where is the Value Proposition of New Cultivars? Who Are They For?
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Rodrigo Cruzat. Biofrutales Consortium - Chile.
Rodrigo Cruzat is an agricultural engineer specializing in fruit growing and has developed his professional life in the technical and commercial development of new varieties. He is currently CEO of the Biofrutales Consortium in Chile and director of commercial development companies for plant genetics.
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Talk 8 - Developing and Commercializing Proprietary Varieties: Grape Industry Insights.
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David Marguleas, SunWorld.
David Marguleas is president and CEO of Sun World International, a global fruit genetics, IP, technology and licensing company. He and his company have long been active in California agriculture in farming, packing, marketing and breeding new produce varieties. Today they breed table grapes, stonefruit and other crops at their California research facility and license more than 2,000 growers to produce those proprietary varieties on 25,000 hectares in 15 countries.
The table grape industry has experiences an explosion of new proprietary varieties, mostly emanating from private breeders, that have transformed nursery and producer operations, retail sales and consumer eating experiences. Further varietal innovation and an accompanying licensing model could sustain and sweeten prospects for the global citrus industry.
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Talk 9 - Leaning Out Your Processes
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Gerson "Gary" Cortes, Flow Vision, USA.
I am a Founding Partner of FlowVision, which was founded in 1998. I have traveled the world implementing Lean Flow techniques in virtually every process and product imaginable. In 2003 we implemented Lean Flow in our first nursery. Since then we have worked with over 250 growers in all segments of the industry.
Lean Flow can improve your operational efficiencies by reducing labor costs, optimizing space, and improving quality. Lean Flow has been around since the Henry Ford days when he designed his automotive assembly line. Learn how Lean Flow can help you Lean out your processes.
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Talk 10 - Recent Innovation in the Production and Supply of Citrus Rootstock Seed and Scion Budwood from the Citrus Foundation Block in South Africa.
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Jacolene Meyer, South Africa.
Jacolene is the production manager of the Citrus Improvement Scheme, where she has been working for 5 years now, and holds an MSc in Microbiology with focus on Plant Virology. She started her career as a technician with the plant pathology section of the Agricultural Research council of South Africa, where she worked in the graft transmissible section performing shoot tip grafting and biological indexing as well as field trails.
The talk will give an overview the seed and budwood production processes including processing and supply operations at the Citrus Foundation Block in South Africa.
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Talk 11 - Nursery Inventory Management
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Jonathan Chislett, Chislett Farms, Australia.
I am the Nursery Manager at Chislett Farms. I studied and worked in engineering and mining before returning to the family business 10 years ago to run the nursery.
After running a Microsoft Excel based inventory management and customer order system for many years, our nursery was keen to implement a more secure and user friendly, online system. And after looking at quite a few off the shelf software packages, it became evident that there wasn't anything available that suited our application. A decision was taken to develop one from scratch. The presentation covers how this was achieved, an overview of the product that was developed and some of the pitfalls and lessons from the experience.
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Talk 12 - Applying Burros 'Pop-Up Autonomy' to the Citrus Nursery
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Chris Thiesen, Burro, USA.
In addition to leading the Burro Sales & Support efforts in California, Chris and his team are continuously identifying new areas where Burro Autonomy can show value supporting real world process improvement. With a family and professional history in stone fruit, table grapes, citrus, and other high value crops, Chris and the Burro Team aim to identify, and develop Autonomy where it is needed most, particularly as it applies to Autonomous Mobility.
Burro can be described as Disney’s Wall-E, for work outdoors (in a 1.0 Format) - Burros are people-scale autonomous ground vehicles built around computer-vision. In this format, Burros utilize our novel patent-pending ‘Pop-Up Autonomy’ to carry, tow, scout, and serve as a platform for progressively more autonomy where it is needed most in agriculture, construction, and more. This in mind, our autonomy, and approach has shown value in its initial nursery use, while continuously identifying more nursery applications within our development pipeline.
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Talk 14 - Citrus Automation Solutions.
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David Bovell, Bellpark, USA.
Dr. Graham Barry has been involved in the South African Citrus Industry for the past 32 years, and is the owner of XLnT Citrus, a company focusing on the development and implementation of novel and innovative citrus products and services, and provides independent technical and strategic consultation services to stakeholders in the Citrus Industry.
New mandarin cultivars continue to be developed and released from citrus breeding programs around the world and are gradually making an impact on global citrus trends, but adaptability to climatic conditions remains a challenge. Grapefruit production in the different production regions of the world is typically dominated by specific varieties, e.g. Star Ruby in South Africa and Israel, Rio Red in Turkey and Texas, and although new variety development can be seen in Florida (FL-904 grapefruit-pummelo hybrid with low FCs) and Texas (Texas Red grapefruit), there has been relatively little recent innovation in new grapefruit cultivars. Lemons and limes continue to be dominated by the established cultivars, although seedless lemons (Eureka Seedless) from South Africa and Australia have started to make in-roads. New orange variety development is driven by the selection of natural mutations and is thus a slow, step-wise process; various late-maturing Navel orange selections are being planted, while among Valencia oranges, local selections largely predominate.
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Talk 15 - Systems Approach to Citrus Growing
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Lars Jensen, Blackmore Company, USA
19 plus years as National Sales Director for Ellepot USA by Blackmore Company. His focus has been on product development with the latest being Air Tray Technologies that allows growers to produce better quality product with a great root system while reducing cost, plastic waste and saving labor, increasing yield & quality.
Air Tray Technologies is a systems approach that allows for labor saving and is flexible in cost for both large and small plant production. It allows for a centralized production that reduces labor costs throughout the growing process.
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Talk 16 - Molecular Effusion as an Analogy to Psyllid Entry Through a Breach in Protective Structure.
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Tom Delfino, California Citrus Nursery Society (CCNS) Former Executive Director, USA.
Mr. Delfino served as Executive Director of California Citrus Nursery Society until his retirement in 2019. He holds a masters degree in chemical engineer and spent most of a career as a consultant on a variety of topics related to environmental restoration. He grows citrus in his home garden.
The probability that no psyllid enters a protective structure through a breach depends on the size of the breach, the length of time it was open, and the density of psyllids around the protective structure. This probability can be estimated from analogy to molecular effusion (which will be explained). U.S. Dept. of Agriculture has not accepted this approach to estimating the probability; however, the equation that results from using this analogy leads to an important insight regarding monitoring for psyllids around protective structures.
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Interactive Workshop 1 - Benchmarking your citrus nursery.
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Moderators Jose Lima & Nate Jameson
The moderator Jose Lima opened the workshop. He provided an overview on the tools and concepts to understand if a citrus nursery has a solid foundation that leads to a high-quality product. Open discussion with the audience followed.
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Jose Lima
I've been a nurseryman for over 20 years, raised in the business and with experience across 3 continents. Currently nursery director for Wonderful Citrus managing the production of 500K trees annually in a facility which was built and designed under my direction.
We will provide the tools and concepts to understand if a citrus nursery has a solid foundation that leads to a high quality product.
Day 2, 2022 Congress video and PDF presentations material
October 4, 2022
Day 2: International Congress on Citrus Nurseries.
Day 2 Material
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The Modern Citrus Cultivars Descriptive Database, a New Resource for Citrus Nurseries and Researchers.
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David Karp, Keynote
David Karp is a renowned fruit expert and writer who has written extensively on fruit-related topics for several publications. He has also worked as a photographer and curator of the Citrus Variety Collection at the University of California, Riverside. Additionally, Karp has co-authored several research papers on fruit genetics, breeding, and preservation.
The Modern Citrus Cultivars Descriptive Database (MCCDD) is a database of mostly recent and privately controlled citrus varieties. It includes all citrus cultivars for which a plant patent or plant breeders’ rights application has been made since 1931. The database covers about 1,100 distinct cultivars and is available on the website of the University of California, Riverside’s Citrus Variety Collection.
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Talk 17 - Updates on a High Volume Citrus Pathogens Detection Approach.
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Doug Hill, Technology Evolving Solutions & Georgios Vidalakis, UC Riverside, USA.
Doug Hill is the President of Technology Evolving Solutions, and his team has designed an automated machine for screening multiple tree samples at once to detect diseases like HLB in orchards and nurseries.
To detect diseases like HLB in a farm or nursery, Technology Evolving Solutions has developed an automated machine that can test multiple tree samples at once. This method is cost-effective as it tests a group of trees instead of individual ones. The machine can process a large quantity of DNA using qPCR without compromising sensitivity.
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Talk 18 - The Role of the South African Citrus Improvement Scheme (CIS) in Ensuring Citrus Biosecurity in Southern Africa.
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Paul Fourie, Stellenbosch University & Citrus Research International, South Africa
Paul Fourie is the manager of the South African Citrus Improvement Scheme, which is operated as a division of Citrus Research International. He is a Plant Pathologist by training and extraordinary professor at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Fourie talks about how the CIS helps ensure the quality and safety of plant propagation materials. It promotes the use of certified materials to neighboring countries to improve biosecurity. Additionally, Fourie discusses the development of an HLB Safe System for producing citrus trees and give an overview of the historical budwood supply that affects the South African industry.
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Talk 19 - Star-grading of Nurseries Participating in the South African Citrus Nursery Certification Scheme.
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Michael Nell, Citrus Research International, South Africa.
Michael Nell is the Nursery Advisor for the Citrus Improvement Scheme (CIS) of Citrus Research International in South Africa.
Nell discusses the star-grading of nurseries participating in the South African citrus nursery certification scheme.
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Talk 20 - The Citrus Nursery Tree Certification Program in Spain.
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José Cuenca, AVASA. Spain.
Jose Cuenca is the director of AVASA with a PhD in Plant Biotechnology and experience in citrus breeding projects. Published over 30 scientific articles and participated in international conferences. Cuenca provides an overview of the certification program carried out in Spain for more than 45 years, as well as the newest research activities in AVASA mainly focused on development of new varieties.
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Talk 22 - The Citrus Rootstock program of IVIA.
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Maria Angeles Forner-Giner, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA), Spain.
Maria Angeles Forner- Gineris a researcher at IVIA studying how to make citrus plants more resilient to environmental stress, like drought and salinity. I focus on evaluating rootstocks and improving sustainability in citrus farming.
The citrus breeding program at IVIA in Spain has developed many commercial citrus rootstocks and cultivars since 1974. Rootstocks are selected based on their ability to withstand common ecological conditions such as iron deficiency, salinity, flooding, and water stress. The program also evaluates new cultivars for nutritional parameters and studies the influence of rootstocks on fruit quality, tree size, and other factors.
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Talk 21 - Disease Resistant, Novel Citrus Cultivars Generated Through Breeding Citrus with Australian Limes.
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Chandrika Ramadugu, UC Riverside, USA.
Chandrika Ramadigu is working towards finding a long-term solution for the citrus industries affected by huanglongbing (HLB) by developing citrus varieties that are resistant or highly tolerant to the disease. Our approach involves breeding and introgressing disease-resistant traits into novel hybrids. To achieve this, we are crossing Australian limes with HLB tolerance with citrus cultivars to generate the hybrids. Currently, we are in the process of selecting novel hybrids for HLB resistance traits as well as acceptable fruit quality.
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Talk 23 - Breeding Scion and Rootstock Cultivars for HLB Tolerance.
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Fred Gmitter, University of Florida, USA
Fred Gmitter is a Citrus Breeding and Genetics Professor at UF-CREC. He specializes in scion and rootstock cultivar development, citrus genomics, and using genome-based tools to improve citrus genetics.
UF CREC citrus breeding program has been developing more tolerant citrus cultivars for over 15 years within an endemic HLB environment. HLB-tolerant selections have been identified and commercialized, and breeding approaches and progress toward genetic gains in scion and rootstock tolerance will be discussed.
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Talk 24 - Rootstock Propagation Method and Root Structure – How Much Does it Matter?
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Ute Albrecht, University of Florida, IFAS, USA
Ute Albrecht is a plant physiologist at the University of Florida, focusing on citrus rootstocks and finding sustainable solutions for HLB. My research is applied and addresses the specific needs of the citrus industry.
Albrecht compares root systems of citrus rootstocks propagated sexually from seeds and vegetatively by tissue culture or cuttings, and explores concerns among citrus growers about the different root structures.
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Talk 26 - The History of California's Battle with ACP and HLB.
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Aaron Dillon, Four Winds Growers Nursery, USA
Aaron Dillon is a fourth-generation citrus nurseryman who co-manages Four Winds Growers with his sister and father. He is an active member of several nursery industry associations
The CPDPC was created in 2009 to combat ACP and HLB in California. Since the first HLB infected tree was discovered in 2012, 3,670 infected trees have been removed, but none of them were in commercial orchards. This talk will cover California's efforts to combat HLB and ACP and the future of this fight.
Talk 27 - Citrus Production on a Trellis.
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Craig Hornung, Hornung Brothers Farming & AC-Foods Citrus Production, USA.
Craig Hornung is an Ag engineer with 40+ years of experience in citrus production and past employment with USDA-ARS, Red Mountain Farming, Soil Solutions, and John Deere Water. Currently working as Grower and Technical Services Director for AC-Foods Citrus Production in Central Valley, California, focusing on remote sensing, soil moisture monitoring, water modification, and irrigation management.
Hornung speaks about sumo citrus mandarins planted in high density on a Tuatara Trellis. He briefs the issues and potential benefits of this production model.
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Talk 28 - Current and Future Trends in Citrus Production & Markets.
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Daniel Kass, Ac Foods, USA.
Daniel Kass is the VP of Import/Export Sales & Marketing for Suntreat Packing and Chairman of California Citrus Quality Council with extensive experience in the citrus industry and international trade.
Kass discusses trends and forecasts on global citrus demand – where are markets and consumers heading on citrus varieties to offer guidance on what nurseries can expect from grower demand.
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Talk 29 - Challenges Facing the California Citrus Grower.
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Casey Kramer, California Citrus Mutual, USA.
Casey Creamer leads California Citrus Mutual (CCM), which serves as the advocacy organization for citrus growers in California. The organization works to address state, local, and international issues that are important to protect and improve the viability of the state's citrus industry.
California's citrus growers are facing challenges related to water, labor, trade, pests, and diseases. They are working to remain viable in the future.
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October 4, 2022Closing Ceremony Day 2 2022 International Congress on Citrus Nurseries
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Filip Van Noort, Key Note
Filip Van Noort is a Researcher for Greenhouse Horticultural Crops, specializing in developing cultivation protocols for crops that are not yet grown indoors in the Netherlands.
Topics covered: benefits of protected growing, challenges when transitioning from outdoor to indoor growing, data collection for indoor cultivation, and cultivation details for outdoor crops grown indoors (e.g. vanilla, black pepper).