Experimental Design
At its core, the CRAFT Program is a broad-scale research project, carried out under commercial citrus production conditions. As such, growers who wish to participate in the CRAFT Program will be asked to select 1-3 factors from a list of testable items developed by the Technical Working Group. These “test factors” will be employed by the grower on test blocks of 20 to 100 acres.
The factors that can be selected for testing include methods and treatments that past research has shown to have a positive impact on HLB mitigation. A complete list of test factors will be included in the online application and will include categories such as grove architecture (i.e. tree density, rootstock) tree health (i.e. irrigation, nutrition, bio-stimulants etc.) and vector management (i.e. bag enclosers, reflective mulch, physical barriers, etc.)
Upon review of applications, CRAFT Foundation, Inc. may choose to negotiate project elements with growers to achieve a multi-location design, across major growing regions and help fill out CRAFT experiment design goals.
