The primary purpose of this agreement is to support the foundation plant services (FPS) clean plant specialty crop program which develops, maintains and produces high quality, asexually propagated…

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025) provides $2,277,000 in funding to the University of California, Davis to support the Foundation Plant Services (FPS) Clean Plant Specialty Crop Program. The primary objective is to develop, maintain, and distribute high-quality, pathogen-tested propagation material for grapevines, trees, roses, and sweetpotatoes. FPS will provide importation, quarantine, and diagnostic testing services, resulting in a significant increase in the availability of certified, clean plant material for commercial nurseries and growers across the United States. This award aims to improve the robustness and quality of specialty crop production, ultimately benefiting growers, nurseries, and consumers through increased yields and profitability.

The primary purpose of this agreement is to support the foundation plant services (FPS) clean plant specialty crop program which develops, maintains and produces high quality, asexually propagated foundation stock and provides importation, quarantine, and testing services to a wide range of stakeholders. We maintain approximately 100 acres of foundation level grapevines, trees, and roses. Our tree and grapevine programs are the source of propagation material for the california department of food and agriculture (cdfa) registration and certification (r & c) programs. FPS supplies healthy pathogen tested grapevine, tree, rose, and sweetpotato propagating stock to industry. Ncpn support of the FPS clean plant specialty crop program provides for the continued development, testing, maintenance, and distribution to industry of elite plant material. FPS will provide importation and quarantine services for our stakeholders under USDA-aphis issued controlled import permits. Testing will be conducted by skilled scientists in our state-of-the-art laboratories. Our trained production staff will maintain and distribute elite plant material to industry users. This proposed ncpn project will result in a significant increase in the number of pathogen-tested grapevine, tree (prunus, pome fruit and olives), rose, and sweetpotato cultivars that are available to commercial nurseries and growers throughout the US. The impact of our work on stakeholders will be more robust production of clean plant material and growers, nurseries, and users of clean plants will benefit from healthier crops with increased quality, yield, and profit. In addition, as studies have documented, there are tremendous economic benefits documented as positive returns on public investments in clean plant center programs.