$3.5 Million Gift to Protect Valuable California Citrus Variety Collection
March 18, 2019 
The University of California, Riverside (UCR) recently announced a $3.5 million donation from Givaudan, a global flavor and fragrance company, to support its Citrus Variety Collection. The gift will help protect one of world’s most extensive citrus diversity collections from the impending threat of citrus greening disease, also known as HLB (Huanglongbing).
The gift will pay for a 2.8-acre protective screened structure for new trees and back-up collections of the UCR Citrus Variety Collection, established more than 100 years ago. The collection includes two trees of about 1,000 types of citrus and occupies 22.3 acres on the UCR campus, as well as two smaller remote sites.
The collection will be known as the Givaudan Citrus Variety Collection at the University of California, Riverside, for a 10-year period. “A significant part of our latest gift to UCR will protect the collection from greening – today’s main challenge to citrus,” Givaudan Global Citrus Product Manager Dawn Streich said.
Collection curator Tracy Kahn said the recent discovery of HLB in Riverside, 2.25 miles from UCR’s Citrus Variety Collection, “crystalized the need for further protection.”
“Working with partners like Givaudan enables us to protect our collection while working on solutions which can help commercial citrus growers,” Kahn said. “This announcement further cements our long-term collaboration with Givaudan, focusing attention on the preservation of the citrus variety collection. This latest gift will help ensure that the collection is well protected.”
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