The Honduras Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (SAG), along with members of the Regional International Organization for Agricultural Health (OIRSA), representatives of the Regional University Center of the Atlantic Coast (CURLA), and of the embassy of China and Taiwan in Honduras inaugurated a second nursery for the production of citrus trees that are free of the Huanglongbing (HLB).
The HLB is a disease that kills citrus plants and that entered Honduras in 2009. To counter it, three years ago the country began implementing protection strategies, drafting buds, and creating nurseries for healthy plants.
This, at the Central American and Caribbean level with support from healthy plant production specialists from Taiwan. It's important to note that Honduras is the leading producer of healthy plants in the Central America and in the Caribbean area.
The Huanglongbing (HLB) is the most devastating citrus disease in the world. It has no cure and there are no plants resistant or tolerant to this bacterium. The HLB is present in Honduras since 2009.
To date, Honduras has built a greenhouse to multiply citrus buds that have a high productivity and that are free of disease. The greenhouse, which has a production capacity of 140,000 healthy buds per year, was built with funding and technical support from ICDF Taiwan, the management from OIRSA, and the technical support of the SAG and the UNAH-CURLA.
This greenhouse can produce 60,000 certified healthy plants per year. Since 2014, Honduras has spent nearly 50,000 dollars to send 5 technicians to receive training in Taiwan, thus strengthening cooperation in different fields of human resource preparation.
Source: radiohrn.hn