News
Saving Valentine`s Day University of Florida researchers are on a disease-fighting mission to ensure that the world`s favorite confection -- chocolate -- will continue to be a Valentine`s Day mainstay. The enemy is witches` broom, an evil-sounding, tree-deforming disease that threatens the global cacao crop and could affect the supply of chocolate in coming years. Randy Ploetz, a professor of plant pathology with UF`s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, and other researchers at UF`s Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, are working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop new cacao varieties that are resistant to witches` broom.
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