The university and its partners also will receive another $3.5 million in matching non-federal funds. Most of these will be from the state departments of transportation represented in the consortium. However, matching funds may also be obtained by transit agencies, local agencies and private firms.

The new consortium, named Southeast Transportation Research, Innovation and Education Center, or STRIDE, will advance transportation research and education in the southeastern U.S. and nationally. The team from UF joined other universities in the region to create a consortium. They are: Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, University of North Carolina, North Carolina State, Florida International University, University of Alabama Birmingham and Auburn University.

The research done by the consortium can help alleviate congestion, increase safety, and optimize the use of the transportation system. Working closely with public agencies will assure that research results can be implemented quickly. For example, improved algorithms for signal control can help reduce the travel time along an arterial street.

STRIDE’s theme focuses on three key areas: safety, livable communities and economic competitiveness. These areas were chosen because of their importance to the southeastern U.S. and the nation, according to the consortium principal investigator, Lily Elefteriadou, director of UF’s Transportation Research Center, part of the College of Engineering’s department of civil and coastal engineering.

The consortium will develop a strong interdisciplinary network of researchers and educators who will collaborate across the region, work closely with state departments of transportation, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Further, it will “enhance collaboration between universities working on transportation research problems” and produce “an increase of the number of grads going into transportation, which is a major goal for the U.S. DOT,” Elefteriadou said.

For the future of transportation, it means there will be increased collaboration at the university level, state departments of transportation and other public agencies, she said.

“There will be an increased awareness of the research going on at the universities regarding transportation and the increasing abilities of research results to improve the transportation network in the region,” she said.

The $3.5 million is from the U.S. Department of Transportation and its Research and Innovative Technology Administration, known as RITA.

Researchers with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences measured antioxidant content in a Florida-produced blueberry wine and compared it to published reports of antioxidant content in white and red wines made from grapes. Antioxidants are compounds that may offer cells protection from damaging molecules called free radicals.

The researchers found the Florida wine, produced from southern highbush blueberries, had more antioxidants than all of the reported white wine values and all but 20 percent of the reported values for red wines, which are considered high in antioxidants.

Wade Yang, a food science and human nutrition assistant professor with IFAS, led the research.

“For people seeking the potential health benefits of a glass of wine, blueberry wine is a comparable, and, in many instances, better alternative to grape wines,” Yang said.

Blueberry production in Florida was valued at more than $70 million in 2009 and is unique because the state’s warm climate allows it to provide some of the first fresh blueberries on U.S. store shelves in the spring.

Wine production offers blueberry producers a market for extra berries they might not be able to sell due to slight imperfections or late ripening, said Jeff Williamson, an IFAS professor in horticultural sciences and fruit crop specialist.

“Growers are always looking for value-added products and ways to utilize all of their crop rather than just the part that might in this case, ripen at the right time and be of the right standards for fresh fruit,” Williamson said.

Florida’s blueberry wine industry is relatively small, Williamson said.

Yang’s team tested the antioxidant activity of the blueberry wine using a method known as oxygen radical absorbance capacity.

This was the first study that looked at antioxidants in wine from southern highbush blueberries, a variety commonly grown in Florida. Previous studies have examined the antioxidant content of wine from northern varieties, and found the values comparable to southern blueberry wine.

Dark fruit, such as blueberries, often indicates the presence of antioxidants. Many of these antioxidants are transferred from the juice, fruit and skins of the blueberries when they are fermented into wine.

A local blueberry wine producing company contributed $5,000 to help fund the study. The research is published in this month’s issue of Sustainable Agriculture Research.

Four of the five categories measured by the survey reveal increased optimism. For instance, the overall perception among survey takers that they are better off financially than they were a year ago rose four points to 60, the highest figure since March 2008 when the U.S. economy began to falter. Expectations that their personal finances will improve by this time next year also rose eight points to 86.

In addition, confidence in the nation’s economy over the next year went up dramatically by 14 points to 74. Trust in the U.S. economy over the next five years was upbeat, too, moving 10 points to 83. These figures parallel results of a University of Michigan study that show consumer confidence across the nation shot up from 69.9 in December to 75 in January.

Only when it came to deciding if the present is a good time to buy big-ticket items such as an automobile or a refrigerator, did confidence among respondents sag, falling four points to 81.

“Consumer confidence in Florida is now back to the level it was in January 2011,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. “We are beginning the year with the same pattern as last year where there were relatively steady increases in confidence from the end of the summer with a surge to 77 in January 2011. This was followed by seven months of decline with the low of 61 in August 2011 when Congress debated the debt ceiling.”

The UF survey shows these increases ranged across income and age groups, except for lower income respondents whose perceptions of current personal finances declined slightly. Results also indicate little difference in confidence among political parties, which indicate that the rising consumer confidence is most likely linked to perceptions of the economy rather than concern about the upcoming November elections, McCarty said.

Employment gains, especially in trade, transportation and utilities, may help explain the boost in confidence. However, McCarty said, the drop in unemployment may also reflect a decline in the labor force, along with adjustments the Bureau of Labor Statistics used to remove seasonal fluctuations in its unemployment calculations.

“The employment report for January will help identify if this is indeed a trend,” he said.

Encouraging news about housing prices and stock market investments, which are the major asset sources for most households, also may be helping to buoy Floridians’ spirits, McCarty said. For instance, the median price of a single-family home increased in December to $134,300, a $4,000 gain from the previous month. In addition, the stock market is near a post-recession high.

“Concrete plans to modify Social Security and Medicare have been shelved, at least temporarily, which is a relief to many seniors,” McCarty said.

Finally, although gas prices have increased nearly 20 cents a gallon over the past month, inflation overall remains low. In addition, interest rates are at near record lows and the Federal Reserve has announced plans to keep them low for the next two years.

“While many aspects of the economy are better this year, it remains to be seen whether this level of confidence will be sustained,” McCarty said. “The biggest threat to the U.S. economy, and therefore Florida, is the recession in Europe which would affect Floridians primarily as decreased demand for Florida tourism, decreased demand for houses from foreign investors, and the stock market portfolios of workers and retirees whose investments would include companies with exposure to much of Europe. However, barring a very negative outcome to the turmoil over European debt, this pattern of confidence, if sustained, bodes well for Florida.”

The index used by UF researchers is benchmarked to 1966, which means a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The lowest index possible is a 2; the highest is 150.

The UF survey was conducted between Jan. 2 and Jan. 25, and reflects the responses of 420 individuals statewide.

The study is the first complete assessment of greening’s economic impact on Florida, said Jack Payne, UF senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources. He called the study an important step in the fight against greening, because it quantifies damages and could show legislators and funding agencies why the invasive disease is one of the state’s biggest challenges.

“This study shows plainly just how imperative it is that we find a cure for citrus greening,” Payne said. “We have dedicated a huge amount of IFAS resources toward that end, and we are very appreciative of the significant support our research is receiving from the citrus industry. Growers are the people most obviously impacted, but the study demonstrates that many other Floridians are hurt as well—when fewer oranges are harvested, there are fewer dollars circulating in our state’s economy.”

First detected in Florida in 2005, greening causes citrus trees to drop fruit prematurely and eventually kills the trees. The disease is caused by a bacterium, and was first described in 1919 in China. The bacterium is transmitted by an invasive insect, the Asian citrus psyllid.

The study compares actual harvests of oranges used to make juice with projected harvests that would have taken place if greening had never struck Florida groves; it covers the growing seasons from 2006-2007 through 2010-2011. During those five years, the disease caused substantial crop losses, said citrus economist Tom Spreen, a professor with the UF/IFAS food and resource economics department.

The state’s juice-orange harvest for the period was 734 million boxes, and would have been an estimated 951 million boxes without greening, Spreen said. To develop economic impact figures, Spreen and colleague Alan Hodges, an extension scientist with the department, analyzed both scenarios using statistical models and data on the citrus industry and Florida’s economy.

To estimate lost revenues and jobs, the economists took into account direct losses to growers, indirect losses to industries affiliated with citrus production and the resulting cuts in spending by employee households and government.

When focusing strictly on juice-orange production during that five-year period, Florida growers lost $1.36 billion in revenues, and 2,125 permanent jobs were lost.

Florida Citrus Mutual, the state’s largest citrus grower organization, funded the study. The study did not address production of other citrus varieties, such as grapefruit, or oranges sold fresh to consumers, Spreen said.

Florida is the nation’s largest citrus producer and the world’s second-largest orange juice producer, after Brazil. Florida’s citrus industry generates about $8.9 billion a year, mainly from orange juice production.

The study is available at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe903.

The Lime Swallowtail, or Citrus Swallowtail, is a well-known agricultural pest from southern Asia discovered in the Caribbean in 2006, and researchers say its potential impact on the U.S. citrus industry is cause for serious concern.

“Everything that’s in the Caribbean eventually gets to Florida – Florida is an invasive magnet,” said UF lepidopterist Delano Lewis, lead author of the study published in the current issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology. “That’s why we’re trying to make the first strike to see how to stop it.”

Experiments conducted on the UF campus at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity and the College of Medicine show when methionine is sprayed on leaves it is 100 percent effective in killing larvae related to the Lime Swallowtail caterpillars within two to three days. If not controlled, the caterpillars can completely defoliate young wild lime plants.

Because the Lime Swallowtail, Princeps (Papilio) demoleus, is invasive and cannot be legally brought into the U.S., researchers experimented using a genetically related surrogate with a similar life history and appetite for citrus, the Giant Swallowtail, Heraclides (Papilio) cresphontes. Because these pest caterpillars have the same body structure and biology, researchers are confident methionine will also control the Lime Swallowtail, Lewis said.

“Its effectiveness is based on the biochemistry of the insect gut, so although this work was done on a surrogate, the methionine will block the ion channel in the same way,” Lewis said.

Methionine is needed in the human diet for many reasons, including protein-building and metabolism. It is environmentally safe and harmless to citrus plants, mammals and birds.

“It’s a very curious phenomenon to have this nutrient amino acid that humans can’t live without, yet at the concentrations we put on the leaves, it is toxic to crop-destructive caterpillars,” said study co-author Bruce Stevens, professor of physiology and functional genomics in the UF College of Medicine. “It’s a completely different class of pesticides that has not been seen before – most are toxic to not only the pest, but to people and animals, too.”

Stevens first discovered the pesticide properties of methionine while cloning genes that regulate amino acid metabolism in 1998. Working with co-author James Cuda of UF’s department of entomology and nematology, Stevens later found this amino acid to be effective against yellow fever mosquito larvae, tomato hornworm and Colorado potato beetle.

Methionine disrupts an ion channel that controls nutrient absorption in larvae with an alkaline intestine, such as in caterpillars of the Citrus Swallowtail. In 2004 and 2007, Stevens obtained two patents for the use of methionine as a pesticide, through the UF Office of Technology Licensing.

“The methionine is sprayed on the leaves, and when the caterpillars begin to eat the leaves, they ingest the compound – it’s not in the plant itself,” Lewis said. “Once they take those first few bites, they don’t feed again and remain stationary until they die.”

Methionine is low-cost and serves as fertilizer if it reaches the ground because it’s a biodegradable nitrogen source, Stevens said. The amino acid is mass produced and has been used as a nutritional supplement in outdoor livestock feed since the 1960s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently approved the use of methionine for organic poultry production.

“This is a neat idea and I’m hoping that more work will be done on this in the future because there’s a lot of potential there,” said John Ruberson, a professor in the entomology department at the University of Georgia, who was not involved in the study. “The one challenge I can see from a grower’s perspective is that it tends to work kind of slowly. Typically, it takes two to three days to kill the insect, but they do show that [insect] feeding is reduced, which is a good thing.”

Patent rights for the use of methionine to control turf and ornamental pests have been licensed to Phoenix Environmental Care LLC, which is developing a pest control product.

While researchers are unsure how the Lime Swallowtail reached the Caribbean, its proximity poses a potential threat to Central and South American citrus industries, as well.

“We suspect someone could have brought them to release the adult butterflies in weddings, or perhaps they arrived with imported citrus stock,” Lewis said. “Regardless, it’s in the Caribbean and it’s a very strong flyer.”

The index used by UF researchers in the survey is benchmarked to 1966, which means a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The lowest index possible is a 2; the highest is 150.

Consumer confidence in December shot up in four of the five indexes used by survey takers, and declined in only one. The index that reveals whether Floridians think their personal finances have improved from a year ago rose one point to 53. Another showed their overall expectations in the soundness of the U.S. economy jumped six points to 59. Confidence in the economy’s performance over the next five years also rose — this time three points to 71. Finally, the overall perception of survey takers that the present is a good time to buy “big ticket” items, such as washing machines and laptops — went up sharply by seven points to 85.

The only index to show dropping confidence was an expectation of a drop in personal finances a year from now, declining two points to 78.

Taken as a whole, the UF survey reflects a changing mood that matches growing confidence across the nation, said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research. In addition, he added, there are factors in the Florida economy that were interpreted as positive by both younger and older respondents. Men were more positive than women by a margin of 71 points to 67.

“Floridians are most likely optimistic about continued improvement in the employment situation,” McCarty said. The decline in unemployment in November was .4 percent to 10 percent. The drop marked the first time in many months that economic sectors other than tourism led the way in employment increases. McCarty noted that employers in trade, transportation and utilities employed 34,800 more workers from October to November. However, he cautioned that many of these new jobs were in retail trade and may only reflect holiday seasonal hiring, which could disappear in early 2012.

McCarty also cited several other reasons for the change in mood. Retailers are offering big seasonal discounts to shoppers and mortgage interest rates are low. Housing prices may have “bottomed out” for a while, he said, hovering about around $130,100 for a single-family home. Gas prices are down, too. A gallon cost about 15 cents less than it did in November, though prices are expected to rise in 2012.

Stock prices were unsteady but did not sink in the wake of bad economic news coming from Europe, as some economists expected. Media reports about the U.S. Congress’ wrangling over debt and spending issues also didn’t sour consumer confidence. “Contrary to our prediction, the impasse of the Super Commission regarding deficit reductions came and went with very little concern from consumers,” McCarty said.

Overall, the mood for December is modestly upbeat. But McCarty cautioned that Floridians may find it hard to remain optimistic in the coming year, if Congress carries through with $1.2 trillion in mandatory spending cuts required by the debt ceiling deal in 2011.

The UF survey was conducted between Dec. 11 and Dec. 22, and reflects the responses of 411 individuals statewide.

The Survey of Emerging Market Conditions, conducted quarterly by the Kelley A. Bergstrom Center for Real Estate Studies at UF’s Warrington College of Business Administration, indicates the main reason for the third-quarter malaise was the falling market for single-family houses, condominiums and most types of land.

Uncertainty over unsettling economic news at the international, national and state levels provides the backdrop for the declining perspective, said Timothy S. Becker, director of the Bergstrom Center. The Commercial Real Estate Sentiment Index declined in the third quarter marking the second consecutive decline of the year.

The survey takers anticipate a sluggish recovery for the real estate market in the coming years. A large inventory of home foreclosures partly explains their gloomy expectation. Respondents also worry about employment. Since January, 70,000 new jobs have been created in Florida, but they were offset by 63,000 lost positions, keeping the unemployment rate at 10.6 percent since April.

Respondents also believe that a weak economy continues to discourage the private sector from adding new hires. Companies instead are likely to squeeze more productivity from workers and store profits to sustain them through future tough economic times. Concern over stock market turmoil, ongoing gridlock in Washington and the upcoming presidential election added to the overall pessimistic outlook.

The UF survey also reveals worry that securities-backed mortgages on commercial properties became harder to get during the third quarter. There was also wariness over the newly enacted Dobbs-Frank Act, which expands federal regulation of banks.

“The problem is that individuals involved in banking don’t yet know what the rules are under the new law, and whenever there’s uncertainty people tend to drop from the investment horizon,” Becker said. “What we’re hearing from the respondents is that because of this uncertainty, there’s a freezing up of capital that should otherwise be going to construction projects.”

That lack of capital, however, is good news for the rental apartment market, which, according to the survey, is real estate’s “best performing asset.” Becker said widespread home foreclosures have forced displaced homeowners to rent apartments. In addition, he said, many young job seekers who want flexibility in housing in urban areas are seeking rental units. That trend helps to drive up occupancy, allowing owners to charge more rent.

The survey also identified bright spots in Florida’s economy. Condo projects are under way in Miami, which is also enjoying an influx of investment from South America. Respondents are also somewhat cheered by prospects for Florida ports as the Panama Canal expansion project continues.

Still, the overall perception of Florida’s real estate market is glum.

“Where we go from here depends on macro-economic forces, ranging from the debt crisis in Europe to the many we have here at home,” Becker said.

A total of 231 Florida professional real estate analysts and investors, representing 13 urban regions of the state and up to 15 property types, participated in the survey.

The index used by University of Florida researchers is benchmarked to 1966, which means a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The lowest index possible is a 2; the highest is 150.

The November survey reveals a mixture of positive and negative perceptions.

“Consumers are slightly less optimistic about current conditions than they were last month and slightly more optimistic about long run conditions,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research, which conducted the survey.

McCarty noted that of the five categories used to measure consumer confidence, two decreased, two increased and one remained unchanged, resulting in an overall mark of 65. Perceptions, for example, that compare personal finance levels with those of a year ago fell two points to 52. However, expectations that personal finances will improve a year from now went up three points to 79.

Meanwhile, respondents’ overall view that the U.S. economy will improve over the coming year fell two points to 52. However, their expectation that the economy will improve over the next five years remained unchanged at 67.

Finally, the perception that now is a good time to buy big-ticket consumer items, such as televisions and laptop computers, rose four points to 75.

Sources for optimism, however, don’t necessarily indicate a recovery is on the way. Most of the index components, for instance, are lower than they were at the same time a year before. Not only is the consumer confidence level stuck at historically low levels, it “has previously been associated with recessionary levels,” said McCarty.

If consumer confidence attitudes are mixed, so, too, are reports of economic activity. The jobless rate for Florida, for example, remains high at 10.3 percent, though there was an encouraging three-tenths of a percent decline in unemployment from September to October. Some of the new hiring occurred in the health and education sectors. An uptick in Florida tourism also spurred job creation in the leisure and hospitality sectors. However, McCarty said sustained increases in tourism may fade if austerity programs in Europe and the U.S. curtail personal spending on travel.

Meanwhile, Florida’s consumer confidence continues to be shaken by a slump in housing activity. The median price for a single-family home at $131,550 is down from both September and October of last year.

The gloomy housing outlook is accompanied by modest good news of gasoline prices, which command a larger share of lower income consumers’ spending. They dropped 7 cents in November from the previous month to $3.35 for a gallon of regular gas.

McCarty also anticipated a future with mixed prospects.

“The Gross Domestic Product (the nation’s annual product and an indicator of economic health), though revised downward for the third quarter, was still positive at 2 percent nationally,” he said. “Florida’s gross state product is forecast to be low, but positive.”

McCarty added that although the U.S. and Florida may avoid experiencing the effects of negative GDP, most economic indicators “suggest sluggish growth for the next few quarters.” In addition, he said that worsening economic problems in Europe may drag the U.S. into a lower GDP.

Even though retail sales were down in October and consumer confidence levels are low, McCarthy predicted modest growth this holiday season compared with 2010.

The index used by UF researchers is benchmarked to 1966, so a value of 100 represents the same level of confidence for that year. The lowest index possible is a 2; the highest is 150.

“Consumer confidence continues to be in the doldrums, uncomfortably near record low levels here in Florida,” said Chris McCarty, director of UF’s Survey Research Center in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

That level of confidence may remain stuck for some time, McCarty said, because “there have been no consistent economic developments over the past couple of months to push confidence lower or raise it from its historically low levels.”

Unlike the previous month, when four of the five indicators used on the survey by UF researchers showed improvement, only two did so in October. The overall view that personal finances are better than they were a year ago rose five points to 54. Expectations that the economy will improve a year from now also increased, rising two points to 55.

Meanwhile, perceptions that personal finances will improve a year from now dropped two points to 72. Respondents also were gloomier than previously about the long-run prospects for the economy; expectations that it will strengthen over the coming five years dropped one point to 67. Finally, the component measuring whether now is good for buying big-ticket items, such as automobiles, laptops, and dishwashers sank four points to 70.

The report found that consumer confidence remains shaky despite reports of slight economic improvement in some sectors. Florida’s unemployment rate, for instance, dropped one-tenth of 1 percent to 10.6 percent, after remaining fixed at 10.7 percent for three months, far better than the record high level of 12.5 percent reached in March 2010.

“One thing to keep an eye on is the size of the labor force,” McCarty said. “Unemployment is the percent of those unemployed but looking for work. When people stop looking, for a variety of reasons, they are not counted. Although Florida’s labor force increased by 14,000 from August to September, it is still down 26,000 from September of 2010.”

Housing prices in Florida also appear to be bottoming out but may be in for more tough times.

“A large overhang of unprocessed foreclosures and a reduction in the maximum loan Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will finance may put further pressure on housing prices,” McCarty said.

Florida’s sagging consumer confidence, however, does help forecasters assess retail activity in the state.

“Around this time of year we start to think about holiday sales,” said McCarty. “For many retailers this can easily represent 30 to 40 percent of their yearly sales. With consumer confidence low, most retailers are not expecting a strong holiday season in comparison to 2010, which was much better than 2009. The National Retail Federation predicts a 2.8 percent increase this holiday season and relatively flat holiday seasonal hiring. Given the current economy, sales in Florida will probably not exceed that. ”

However, McCarty also suggested that a recent increase in retail sales reported at the national level may indicate that Florida’s own retail activity could receive at least a temporary boost. Uncertainty among consumers, meanwhile, also is likely to continue.

“We must keep in mind that the Super Commission (in Congress) is required to come up with recommendations for budget cuts by Nov. 23 or automatic cuts will be triggered,” McCarty said. “Regardless of the outcome, we can expect renewed media coverage similar to the debt ceiling discussion in August that many consumers found unnerving.”

He also said that even though Florida’s seniors continue to report declining personal finances, this decline should be offset somewhat when they receive a cost-of-living adjustment to Social Security payments in January.

The UF survey measures the mood of consumers 18 or older, living in households, who were randomly telephoned Oct. 1-19. The preliminary index for October was collected from 403 respondents.

But University of Florida researchers now believe within the next few years, they’ll be able to release a grapefruit-pummelo hybrid that those who enjoy the zingy fruit can consume, without risking adverse side effects from their medicine.

The researchers’ findings are presented in the current issue of the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science.

“We have the possibility to develop new products that are going to be very similar to grapefruit, and we won’t have these issues. And they can be used as a fresh fruit, or people can make juice from them, and all these folks who are on the medicines won’t have to worry about them,” said Fred Gmitter, a UF citrus breeder based at the university’s Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred.

In 1989, scientists doing a study on how alcohol consumption might interact with a prescription drug attempted to disguise the alcohol’s taste by mixing it with grapefruit juice and discovered what is now commonly called the “grapefruit juice effect.”

In conjunction with some medicines, including those meant to lower cholesterol, the grapefruit can change how much of the drugs are absorbed in the patients’ bloodstream, intensifying therapeutic or side effects. A chemical naturally found in some vegetables and fruits called furanocoumarin has been identified as primarily responsible for the grapefruit juice effect.

The UF study began when Florida Department of Citrus research scientist Paul Cancalon, also based at the Lake Alfred center, asked Gmitter’s laboratory for samples of Florida-grown grapefruit to compare to grapefruit grown in other places around the world.

Cancalon noticed that the Florida-grown grapefruit demonstrated lower furanocoumarin content than grapefruit grown in other places, prompting Gmitter and Cancalon to begin checking more grapefruit and pummelo varieties, as well as hybrids, for furanocoumarin levels.

Eventually, Gmitter said, they found several hybrids with little to no furanocoumarins, including one seedless variety he believes will have wide appeal for consumers.

Besides Gmitter and Cancalon, the team included UF associate scientist Chunxian Chen and Carl Haun, a Florida Department of Citrus chemist.

Lisa House, a UF professor in food and resource economics who studies consumer preferences, led two focus groups in Atlanta in early 2011. One group was made up of grapefruit consumers; the other of non-consumers.

Although it’s difficult to draw big conclusions from a small group, she said, in general, both consumer groups liked the idea of a grapefruit hybrid that didn’t interfere with prescription drugs – more so after taste tests.

“Both groups saw it as a fruit to add to their diet, not just something to replace grapefruit,” she said.

The NIFA-funded research study could produce big results for Florida’s $20 million-a-year grape industry. Around the world, fungal-disease issues are a problem for grape growers, so creating varieties more naturally resistant to those diseases could benefit the industry and allow UF to license some varieties.

And by developing muscadines with no seeds, Gray hopes to boost the popularity of muscadines as a table grape — varieties that are eaten fresh, rather than being processed into jellies, wines and other products.

The UF grant was announced Friday by Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan as part of a $46 million NIFA grant package aimed at helping the nation’s specialty crop industry; the funding will support 29 projects in 19 states.

Gray, a professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, is based at the university’s Mid-Florida Research and Education Center in Apopka. Other IFAS faculty members involved in the project include Lisa House, Mercy Olmstead and Charles Sims. UF senior biologist Zhijian Li is also part of the team.

The project will use intragenics to create desirable seedless and fruit rot-resistant muscadine cultivars. Intragenics is also sometimes called “green genetic engineering” or “precision breeding.”

Unlike transgenic technology, the intragenic method uses only genetic elements from the host plant – in this case, grape. That means the resulting cultivar contains no foreign genes or DNA. Traditional breeding could achieve the same outcomes, but would take far longer, Gray said.

Gray said the project also includes collaboration with researchers in Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Virgin Islands.

A team from UF’s Department of Astronomy initiated the arrangement that creates a collaborative research initiative between scientists in Spain and Florida working in small satellite technology, agriculture biotechnology, and the science of aging. Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll and Cristina Garmendia, Spain’s minister of science and innovation, will sign an official agreement to launch the project Friday in Madrid. Win Phillips, UF senior vice president and chief operating officer, also will attend.

“Spain and Florida have a great deal in common,” said Rafael Guzman, astronomy department chairman at UF. “Both of their economies are based on tourism and agriculture, they have similar population demographics and they have a common interest in space exploration.”

Better science can improve agriculture and medicine, but science also can create jobs, Guzman said. The third leg of the collaboration between Spain and Florida, small-satellite research, has the most obvious potential for creating jobs and a new source of wealth for players on both sides of the Atlantic.

The UF astronomy department initially became interested in collaborating with Spain because of its small-satellite program. As the relationship grew between the two, it became clear that there were other possibilities for partnering.

“Spain has had a successful program that has built and flown small satellites for years,” said Peggy Evanich, a former NASA programs manager who now works with UF’s astronomy department to build relationships between the university and industry leaders. “But they don’t have their own launch facilities.” They were using facilities in Russia and France, she said.

Small satellites range in size from 4 inches to 3 feet cubed and have huge potential for commercial applications, Guzman said.

“You could use small satellites equipped with telescopes to monitor crops for diseases like citrus canker and stop a contamination before it destroys a whole grove,” he said.

UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, or IFAS, will lead efforts from this side of the Atlantic to find new technology to help growers. A similar agency in Spain will drive parallel efforts, creating opportunities for joint studies, new sources of funding and fresh perspectives on common challenges.

UF’s Institute on Aging will similarly join with a sister organization in Spain to push their field of research forward.

Last month, in anticipation of the collaboration with Spain, UF signed a separate agreement with NASA that secures the Kennedy Space Center’s technical and logistical help integrating UF experimental payloads with Spain’s small satellites. The university is cutting cost by launching their satellites as piggyback cargo on spacecraft chartered by other entities, such as the Department of Defense.

The first launch in support of the research collaboration could happen as early as February 2012, Guzman said.

“This is an exciting time as the state of Florida and Spain chart out new economic and scientific opportunities together,” Carroll said. “It’s a great new chapter in the rich history of discovery we share.”

Space Florida, a state agency charged with fostering growth of the aerospace industry in Florida, is beginning a collaboration with Spain this week as well. Frank DiBello, president of Space Florida, signed an agreement today with INTA, Spain’s space agency, to establish a joint venture commercial business in Florida that builds, markets and launches small satellites.

The current agreement begins the planning process for the future commercial venture that will be based near the Kennedy Space Center.

For UF’s astronomers, the collaboration with Spain offers unprecedented access to the heavens that could result in discoveries that mean recognition and prestige for the university. But Guzman said that isn’t the end game.

“We believe popular predictions that small satellites will account for much of the $250 billion annual space industry by the end of the decade,” he said. With Spain’s experience in that niche, and Florida’s cache of talent and resources to develop the package fully, Guzman said, the collaboration seems a natural winner.

Two groups of historic preservation students at the College of Design, Construction and Planning helped take the state park, which was already listed on the National Register of Historic Places as “locally significant,” to the next level: a listing at the state level of significance.

For two semesters, graduate students researched primary source documents to support the site for the elevated status and then write the nomination proposal. Three students opted to complete the nomination during a third semester.

Rachel Thibeault, co-primary writer of the nomination, said that the news came as a relief and as a sense of accomplishment.

“It’s pretty amazing to be able to work on something like a nomination while you’re still a graduate student,” Thibeault said. “It goes way beyond something to put on your résumé.”

Barbara E. Mattick, who heads the National Register Programs for the State of Florida, said that additional information about the site’s history as a Confederate memorial was significant enough to warrant the submission of an entirely new nomination.

At the end of the Civil War, Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin – fearing arrest by the U.S. Army, treason charges and the possibility of death – escaped to England by traveling in disguise under a false name. Historical documents further prove that Benjamin sought shelter for roughly two weeks at the Gamble Plantation, the only surviving plantation house in South Florida.

Jim Flook, co-primary writer of the nomination, consulted wartime documents to prove Benjamin’s stop at the site.

“Working on a nomination is one avenue of sharing history,” Flook said. “It’s the ability to take a research project and put it out in front of other people so it can be seen and used.”

Janet Matthews, scholar in residence at the college, has a long history of working with the site as a former Florida state historic preservation officer and former associate director, cultural resources and keeper, National Register of Historic Places with the National Park Service.

The two courses, which took place over spring and fall 2010, included goals to “work with a complicated site and to understand the hard work of documentation and formal writing, which has implication for interpretation to the public,” Matthews said, adding that she “valued the benefits to students of experiencing the tough slog through precision writing in consultation with the state.” The students themselves opted to finalize and submit an official nomination and not simply conduct a class exercise. The park’s elevated status redefined the protected boundaries at the site and broadened its historic documentation.

“This adds to the official record the stunning fact of a courageous, undercover escape that happened in a place we can visit today,” Matthews said.

The nomination was formally reviewed by the Florida National Register Review Board on March 23 in Tallahassee prior to submission to the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., and was officially listed Sept. 23.

The findings could help maintain the health of Florida’s coral reefs, which bring in billions of dollars to the state annually and are important for tourism, fisheries, shoreline protection and pharmaceutical research.

“Coral reefs are a major attraction for tourists in Florida,” said Max Teplitski, a microbiologist and an associate professor at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “They support the economies of South Florida, and they’re also important for fisheries and, in general, healthy ecosystems.”

“Unfortunately, in the past 20 years, corals have been degrading due to global environmental changes and direct human impacts, like overfishing and other pressures,” he said. “And also, diseases have been wiping out stressed corals in South Florida.”

White pox is caused by Serratia marcescens, a bacterium that commonly occurs in feces of animals and is capable of attacking a variety of animals and plants.

To combat white pox, Teplitski and a team of researchers began studying the interactions between the pathogen that causes the malady and other microorganisms that live on corals.

Their findings are detailed in a study Teplitski co-authored in this month’s issue of The ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology.

Corals are ancient creatures that recruit microorganisms such as bacteria to protect themselves from disease. Their characteristic structure is built by animals known as polyps.

In the study, the researchers screened several hundred bacteria isolated from coral and non-coral polyps for the ability to help ward off white pox.

The researchers found four bacteria that stopped white pox disease progression under controlled laboratory conditions and, to some degree, protected the polyps from getting sick.

They also noted that polyps containing the bacteria survived white pox infection, whereas those without the bacteria died.

Based on these results, scientists may begin checking individual polyps for the presence of beneficial bacteria before introducing them into a reef system as part of coral reef restoration.

Kim Ritchie, senior scientist and manager for the marine microbiology program at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, said Florida’s coral reefs are some of the sickest in the world.

“They seem to be in the worst shape,” said Ritchie, a co-author of the study. “But the more we can learn about the balance of beneficial bacteria and pathogenic bacteria, the easier it will be to help the coral reefs in the Keys become healthier.”

The research was funded by sales of Protect Our Reefs specialty license plates, a statewide program administered by Mote Marine Laboratory Inc.

Study authors also include Ali Alagely, a former UF undergraduate student, and Cory Krediet, a doctoral student in the interdisciplinary ecology program at UF’s School of Natural Resources and Environment.

The improved forests will stem from a genetic technique the researchers have developed that can create new tree varieties in half the time it takes current breeding methods.

The technique, detailed in a study published online Wednesday by the journal New Phytologist, is expected to increase the security and competitiveness of the U.S. forestry industry.

The Southeast is a leading producer of the world’s pine, and in Florida alone, the forestry industry had an economic impact of more than $14 billion on the state’s economy in 2009 and provided more than 80,000 jobs. Pine is used for building materials, furniture and paper.

Before the development, creating a new pine variety took more than 13 years. Now, with the new technique, the estimated time is about six years. The savings to the forestry industry are expected to be substantial.

“Competitiveness is a critical element right now,” said Matias Kirst, an associate professor in UF’s school of forest resources and conservation and an author of the study.

“We are under very significant pressure from countries in the world where there’s perhaps less regulation, where there’s higher photosynthetic capacity and the trees grow more,” he said. “So we have to have the ability to breed more rapidly.”

The finding came when the researchers, who are members of UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, decided to bypass uncovering every bit of genetic code behind pine tree traits. Instead they used the parts of the genetic code they already knew to develop a trait prediction model.

The model allows the researchers to predict with great accuracy traits that will appear in a tree without having to first grow it in a field test, which can take about eight years.

Kirst said a large part of the technique’s value is in breeding trees that perform well in the face of climate change, including conditions such as higher temperatures and increased drought.

“Breeders want to be in a position where the genetic material that they use is adaptable to a broad range of conditions,” he said.

Gary Peter, a professor in UF’s school of forest resources and conservation and another study author, said the new method will also enable faster development of trees that can be used for bioenergy, or energy produced from renewable resources.

“If we can modify traits much faster, we can create more specialized trees that can be grown for different products than just pulp and paper and solid wood,” Peter said. “We can tailor them for energy conversion.”

The new technique will also allow for the speedier development of trees with improved traits such as better wood quality and disease and pest resistance.

The study’s authors also include lead author Márcio Resende Jr., a doctoral student in UF’s genetics and genomics program; Patricio Munoz, a doctoral student in UF’s plant molecular and cellular biology program; Juan Acosta, a doctoral student in UF’s school of forest resources and conservation; John Davis, a professor and associate director of UF’s school of forest resources and conservation; Dario Grattapaglia, a genetics and biotechnology resources researcher with Embrapa in Brazil; and Marcos Resende, with the department of forest engineering at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa in Brazil.