A network of spore traps in parts of Idaho, Washington and Oregon will mostly focus on late blight in potatoes while continuing to monitor for early blight in some areas.
“After three full years of data we have a good handle on the other potato diseases, but will (still) be monitoring for early blight at select sites,” James Woodhall, plant pathologist at the University of Idaho Parma Research & Extension Center, told Capital Press.
Woodhall said traps have been clustered in Washington and the Rupert-Paul area to investigate late blight more in-depth, due to outbreaks in those locations in previous years.
“It’s exciting to investigate this, as hopefully it will provide us with answers to fundamental questions like, how much of an area does a single spore trap cover?” he said.
Researchers this year also made some improvements to the sensitivity of the early blight test, to be performed at a few sites, Woodhall said. They refined disease models used alongside spore data to help indicate disease risk.
They are investigating the use of a filter trap at selected sites, “which will allow us to investigate other diseases which may be moved through showers or irrigation,” he said.
The network is designed to detect airborne diseases before they impact crops. It consists of 18 traps, including four in southeastern Washington — from Pasco to Eltopia — two in eastern Oregon, and a dozen across southern Idaho, including four in the Rupert-Paul area.
Kasia Duellman with UI in Idaho Falls and Tim Waters of Washington State University also are involved in the spore network. The first update is expected to go out late in the June 14-18 week.
June 16, 2021 at 06:58AM
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Spore-trap research to focus on potato late blight - Capital Press
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