Tanishka Aglave, a senior at Strawberry Crest High School, engineered a three‑pronged solution to curb citrus greening in Florida, combining a curry‑leaf extract bactericide, a phase‑changing heat system to boost sap flow, and a YOLOv11‑powered web app that diagnoses disease from leaf photos.
She began the project as a freshman, dedicating over 300 hours of after‑school lab work, and refined her formulas after early attempts yielded only a 10% extract yield.
The disease, which has decimated groves across the state, left many growers—Aglave’s own family among them—struggling with lost trees and dwindling yields, a reality that spurred her research.
Aglave’s breakthrough has earned her a $50,000 scholarship as a 2026 Davidson Fellow, and the Institute announced plans to collaborate with Florida citrus growers for on‑farm trials that could bring her lab‑derived treatments to the fields.
The Institute also indicated that the AI diagnostic platform could be adapted for other bacterial and fungal diseases, potentially expanding its impact beyond Florida’s citrus.