February 2020 – Citrus Tree Physiology Lab

Mark Keeley turned a lifelong passion for plants into work that hopefully will help us better understand the way HLB affects Florida citrus trees. He worked in citrus research before starting his Master’s, but said he’s always been interested in plants and has been playing around with them for as long as he can remember. He made his way to plant research after trying out several undergrad degrees that didn’t fit quite right. Eventually, to no one’s surprise he told me, he joined the UF Horticultural Sciences Department. From there he had several jobs before landing one at a private agricultural research station. He likes his job because he said it’s, “Me and orange groves 4 or 5 days a week. Me and the plants, it’s quiet. Calming.” Through this job he decided to pursue a Masters in Agronomy. When asked why he’s pursuing his masters and working full-time for the private lab he laughed and said it was mostly for selfish, personal reasons. As a part of his master’s program he’s working with the tree physiology lab on a project that’s attempting to show a relationship between photosynthesis and citrus greening.

At the tree physiology lab, we hope to improve citrus growth based on understanding its environmental physiology. This particular experiment’s goal to describe the effects of HLB on photosynthesis. Part of this experiment also includes looking at the difference between shoot photosynthesis and leaf photosynthesis. This photosynthetic activity can’t be translated between leaf and tree, so we are trying to determine why. Studying photosynthesis on the leaf level can help garner understanding for the effects of photosynthesis on the whole canopy, but we need to understand what causes differences, too. Mark explained, “[We are] specifically looking at impacts of greening on photosynthesis as well as the amount of photosynthesis acquired from the leaf material and the stem material and what those impacts are over time on maturation.” In terms of the importance of this work for management, “It’s no longer preventing the bacteria from being there; it’s more how do we support the tree in [spite] of the bacteria,” he explained. This would be helpful because Mark believes the current approach to managing HLB isn’t working, so this could open the door to try other approaches.

The project uses an infared gas analyzer (affectionately called “IRGA”) called Li-Cor 6800. The machine cycles a known amount of CO₂ and water over the leaf and measures how the concentrations change after they pass over to determine how much CO₂ is being taken in and how much water is being released by the plant. This allows us to measure photosynthetic activity. Doing this in the lab with a known amount of light allows us to see the direct impacts of disease or other treatments over time without having to contend with clouds, different radiation intensities, etc. Eventually Mark would like to do work like this in the field, but while he’s still developing the methods, inside the lab is the best opt

The project uses an infared gas analyzer (affectionately called “IRGA”) called Li-Cor [RV1] 6800. The machine cycles a known amount of CO₂ and water over the leaf and measures how the concentrations change after they pass over to determine how much CO₂ is being taken in and how much water is being released by the plant. This allows us to measure photosynthetic activity. Doing this in the lab with a known amount of light allows us to see the direct impacts of disease or other treatments over time without having to contend with clouds, different radiation intensities, etc. Eventually Mark would like to do work like this in the field, but while he’s still developing the methods, inside the lab is the best option.

When I asked why he believes this work is important he said, “Fascination for me. I keep going down the rabbit hole more than anything. I think it will be important if we find some of these relationships with the infection level and the tree. Like I said, it’ll change the way we culturally try to manage the disease [HLB]. Other than that, it’s more of a curiosity.”

Talent Vharachumu was an undergraduate intern who is originally from Zimbabwe and attends university in Costa Rica. She is studying agricultural sciences and has become particularly interested in plant physiology, especially due to her time at the lab. Along with the work Talent did for the physiology lab, as is typical for an intern, she sometimes participated in work with other labs as well. She enjoyed this because it allowed her to learn many different things and meet more people. She hopes to be able to return to the lab to complete her masters.

She enjoyed her work at the lab because she learned more about plant physiology. Our goal at the tree physiology lab is to improve general tree health and make strides in understanding tree physiology better and more completely. To accomplish this goal, we do research with a whole plant approach. One such experiment is on how different plants respond to and are affected by heat.

Talent primarily worked on that experiment. She would collect leaves from a variety of trees in a variety of genotypes and perform a procedure on them to test how they tolerate the different temperatures. To do the experiment she used a machine that punches a piece of the leaf out, then placed the piece on a black disk that went inside a Ziplock bag, which was then placed in a container of water for 30 minutes. Then she’d record the chlorophyll fluorescence (photosynthetic energy conversion) of the leaves, given from a machine called the Fluoremeter. She also worked on another project with an infrared gas analyzer (Li-6800) machine to measure photosynthesis, gas exchange, and chlorophyll fluorescence.

When I asked Talent why she believes this work is important and why she thinks people should care about it she explained that the data she’s gathering helps us better understand the way climate change is affecting the planet, different environments, and plants in general. People who work in agriculture can use the data about which plants tolerate heat better to determine which genotypes to grow, which hopefully will increase plant yield and agricultural efficiency as temperatures warm. Talent also said it “…can help them reduce losses from low production due to high temperatures that are being caused by global warming.” This is useful because it allows growers to make informed decisions about what kinds of crops to plant as the climate and planet continue to change. I asked specifically what she would say to people who think they don’t have a reason to care about plants and she said, “They don’t care about plants, but they care about eating.”