GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Even when Matt Mattia was studying tomato breeding as a master’s student at the University of Florida, he was dreaming of citrus.
Now a doctoral student at UF, he’s working toward achieving that dream of working in one of Florida’s most important industries. Thanks to the Hunt Brothers Fellowship, which funds graduate research in citrus, Mattia can live, work and study in the heart of citrus country at the Citrus Research and Education Center (CREC) in Lake Alfred, Florida. CREC is part of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
“The citrus industry is at a critical point in its existence and I love working on projects that will help this industry succeed,” Mattia said. “There is an extraordinary amount of practical citrus information, hard-core science and real industry experiences that flow through the CREC. If it were not for the Hunt Brothers Fellowship, I would not be studying citrus breeding at the center.”
Mattia’s research focuses on phytochemicals, the health-boosting antioxidants found in citrus. He is investigating which genes are associated with these beneficial substances and approximating where they are located in the citrus genome.
“Once the genomic associations are known, we will develop molecular markers that will enable plant breeders to create new cultivars with enhanced human health benefits,” Mattia said. “Additionally, we will conduct a consumer survey to determine how much consumers are willing to pay for nutritionally improved cultivars. We expect that evaluating the phytochemical levels in newly released cultivars and marketing them as such may accelerate variety adoption driven by consumer demand.”
–Samantha Grenrock
UF|IFAS
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