Seminar Dr Christopher Vincent

To be productive, vascular plants must balance photosynthesis with the capacity to move and store photosynthates. Phloem-affecting diseases, which afflict a wide range of agricultural crops, interrupt transport impacting growth of sinks, such as roots and seeds or fruits, as well as affecting photosynthesis. The global citrus industry has been impacted by citrus greening disease (huanglongbing, known as HLB), which has reduced Florida citrus production by more than 90%. Our lab has been working to understand and address the physiological effects of this disease to facilitate a recovery of production. In this seminar I will describe how we have identified sinks as the most affected organs, and the major factors that impact sugar transport under HLB. On the other hand, the impacts of HLB on photosynthesis do not follow the standard interpretation of source-sink attenuation, raising important questions about how trees coregulate carbon fixation and transport generally. Finally, our work suggests that manipulations of the micro-environment, such as shading, can improve health and productivity of infected trees. These results have implications for other phloem-affecting diseases, as well as for the interactions of carbon transport and fixation in trees.

Christopher Vincent, Horticultural Sciences Departement and Citrus Research and Education Center, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences IFAS, University of Florida UF, Lake Alfred, USA

Invitation: Sylvie Dinant, "Carbon, Allocation, Transport and Signaling" CATS team


Seminar in connection with the research developed at the Institute Jean-Pierre Bourgin for Plant Sciences.