The primary purpose of this agreement is to enhance the capacity of the US berries industries by indexing, cleaning and maintaining propagation material that is free of all targeted systemic pathogens

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) awarded a $250,000 Cooperative Agreement under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care Federal Grant Program (CFDA 10.025) to the Division of Agriculture of the University of Arkansas. The primary purpose of this 1-year award is to enhance the capacity of the U.S. berry industry by indexing, cleaning, and maintaining propagation material that is free of targeted systemic pathogens. Key responsibilities include: 1) Maintaining, distributing, and testing G1 propagation material for systemic pathogens; 2) Performing elimination therapy and high-throughput sequencing to clean and test breeding lines for targeted pathogens; and 3) Providing diagnostic services to the berry industry, including testing approximately 9,500 samples. This work will support public and private berry breeders, nurseries, and growers by increasing the availability of clean, pathogen-free propagation material.

The arkansas clean plant center has several key responsibilities. Firstly, we will maintain, distribute, and test G1 material that has been shipped from other centers and is now curated at acpc. We will follow standard operating procedures (sops) and test for newly identified systemic pathogens. Secondly, we will perform elimination therapy for target pathogens to meet industry needs. Upon arrival, breeding lines will be tested by high throughput sequencing (HTS). If found positive for systemic pathogens of concern, they will undergo heat therapy. Five meristems will then bepulled from each accession, grown, and tested for the presence of viruses by HTS three additional times before they are deemed clean and ready to be distributed to nurseries. Thirdly, we will provide the berry industry with diagnostic services. We aim to clean 11 new accessions during the coming year, maintain existing accessions (11), test all for pathogens of concern, and participate in the education and outreach efforts of ncpn as needed. The acpc will also perform diagnostic testing for these privately held clean stock programs; performing ~9,500 tests last year. Our work will help the berry industry at large, including public and private breeders, nurseries, and growers, to keep momentum and provide additional cleaning capacity in addition to the other berry centers.