Why Soilcea?

Soilcea has developed citrus trees that are resistant to Huanglongbing (citrus greening disease) that is decimating the Florida citrus industry, having killed over 50 million trees, having cost the state over $10 billion in lost revenue, and having reduced citrus production from 300 million citrus boxes annually to 15 million boxes. Soilcea has exclusive commercial licenses to patents to HLB and canker target susceptibility genes and optimized CRISPR transformation methods for citrus developed by Dr. Nian Wang’s lab at the University of Florida.

CRISPR Precision Breeding

Soilcea is using CRISPR breeding to make small edits that make a tree susceptible to citrus greening and canker. Nature constantly makes changes to counter diseases and slowly adopts the beneficial change through natural selection. At Soilcea, we are advancing a natural process in time to save the Florida citrus industry. Soilcea's new varieties are showing significantly reduced disease levels and strong growth. The picture below shows a new Soilcea tree on the right compared to a normal control tree on the left that were planted at the same time.   

Team

Yianni Lagos, JD/CFA

Presient & CFO

Bio

Dusica Coltrane 

Protoplast Scientist

Bio

Quinton Allen, PhD

Senior Scientist

Bio

Ron Edwards

Business Advisor

Bio

Jacob Zobrist, PhD

Scientist

Brendan Mormile, PhD

Scientist

Lindsey Logan

Lab Technician

Ron English

Citrus Grower

Keval Patel

Lab Technician

Cecilia Calabi Villarroel

Lab Technician

Ava Turchiarolo

Lab Technician

Alydia White

Lab Technician

Elizabeth Newmiller

Lab Technician

Andrew Dill

Greenhouse Grower

Advisory Board

 

Ron Edwards

President and CEO of Evans Properties

Dr. Harold Browning

President of Premier Citrus Apz

Dave Crumbly

Vice President, Agricltural Services at Florida's Natural Growers

Fran Becker

Senior Vice President of Peace River Citrus Products

Clay Pederson

Managing Director of Agromillora Florida

 

 

Contact

yianni@soilcea.com

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