CarriCea – the first citrus rootstock tolerant to greening
30th June, 2026
Florida growers welcome the registration of CarriCea™ T1, a first-of-its-kind gene-edited citrus rootstock developed by Soilcea from University of Florida research. A US milestone with global implications, and a signal about where the science is heading.
After two decades of decline, Florida’s citrus industry has a new tool. On 28 April 2026, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted registration to CarriCea™ T1, a citrus rootstock developed by Soilcea from research at the University of Florida. It is the first citrus rootstock in the world designed to tolerate citrus greening.
Florida Citrus Mutual (FCM), the state’s growers’ association, called the approval “a major milestone” and “the first look at citrus trees of the future.”
Huanglongbing (HLB), also known as citrus greening, is a devastating bacterial disease caused by Candidatus Liberibacter. For an industry that has watched it gradually undermine production over roughly two decades, the news matters.
What CarriCea™ T1 does
Citrus greening is caused by a bacterium, Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, that lives inside the phloem (the plant’s internal transport system) and slowly starves the tree. Once a tree is infected, there is no cure. Traditional control has relied on removing infected trees and spraying to manage the insect vector.
CarriCea™ T1 takes a different route. It is a rootstock (the underground portion of a grafted citrus tree) whose own genes have been precisely edited so that the greening bacterium struggles to interact with the plant. The tree, in effect, becomes a much less hospitable host.
According to FCM, the fruit produced by trees on CarriCea™ T1 is indistinguishable from fruit produced by trees on any other citrus rootstock.
A regulatory door opens
The registration means US growers can plant CarriCea™ T1 ahead of the 2026–27 citrus season. Broad implementation will take time. New rootstocks reach commercial scale slowly. But the direction of travel is now unmistakable. A regulatory door has been opened for gene-edited citrus solutions in the world’s largest citrus juice economy.
The approval also reduces the need for pesticide spraying, cutting one of the citrus industry’s most stubborn cost lines.
The CITRUSBUSTERS view
CarriCea™ T1 embodies exactly the kind of thinking that runs through our project. Work with plant biology, not just against pest chemistry. Where citrus growers have leaned on broad-spectrum sprays for decades, precision science is beginning to offer a more elegant answer.
In CITRUSBUSTERS‘ Work Package (WP) 1, Centro de Citricultura Sylvio Moreira – Instituto Agronômico (CCSM-IAC) has already identified six candidate tolerant trees in abandoned Brazilian orchards. In WP 2 of CITRUSBUSTERS, ANECOOP and CCSM-IAC are building the DNA-free gene-editing platform that will underpin the next generation of resilient citrus varieties for European conditions. Also, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) is extracting immune-priming biofractions from citrus peel waste. Moreover in WP 3, AINIA is designing precision biocontrol tools that silence the pest’s own biology.
CITRUSBUSTERS congratulates Soilcea, the University of Florida, and the growers of Florida on the CarriCea™ T1 registration. This is a milestone for one country, as well as significant signal for a whole industry. Different paths, same idea – the future of citrus protection is precise, biological, and grounded in the plant itself.
This article is based on the announcement issued by Florida Citrus Mutual on 28 April 2026, as reported by Citrus Industry Magazine.