DOVER, Fla. — Sit down with Tanishka Aglave for a few minutes, and you’ll quickly see her passion for the environment.
“Since a young age, I’ve actually grown up on a farm,” she said.
It’s that passion that helped drive innovation and now major recognition.
“I was in psychology class when I received the email for the award, and then it said congratulations on the top line, and I was really excited,” said Aglave.
The junior at Strawberry Crest High School was named a national winner of the President’s Environmental Youth Award by the EPA for her project “Reviving Citrus, Reviving Florida.”
“My project was actually aimed to addressing the citrus greening disease, which is known as the most prominent threat to all citrus cultivars worldwide,” said Aglave. “Specifically in Florida, this disease is really prominent, and it has almost devastated a lot of these Florida citrus groves, and the farmers are really struggling.”
Aglave was one of just a handful of winners this year and the only one from Florida.
As part of her work, she developed a sustainable and eco-friendly treatment using curry leaf extract.
“I was able to use 3D printing to engineer modified trunk injection syringes, where you can take the syringe and inject this extract into the trees, and this was able to achieve a 65 percent reduction in the disease severity,” she said.
On top of that, Aglave led a campaign that included planting more than 1,500 citrus trees, distributing disease management kits to farmers, and doing educational workshops.
Aglave said she wants to go into the biological sciences, and though she’s just 16 years old, it’s clear her future is bright.
“I think that’s really something that’s important to draw attention and light to this problem that’s really existed in Florida, and I think that going forward, this could really help a lot of Florida growers,” she said.
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Mary O’Connell has a primary focus on education-related stories for Tampa Bay 28. But she also keeps an eye on public health concerns and the always-changing car insurance market. Reach out to Mary to share any of your questions or concerns.
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