The webinar took place on January 14, 2014.
This devastating disease has been occurring more often in the USA recently, especially on tomatoes. Beginning and experienced growers need to understand changes in the pathogen that account for this change and other facts about recent occurrences in order to manage late blight effectively. Another objective is to share information among researchers and growers about managing late blight with copper, biofungicides, and resistant varieties, and utility of the USABlight monitoring program and the Decision Support System.
Margaret Tuttle McGrath, Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University, Riverhead, New York. Meg McGrath conducts research. gives talks, and prepares extension materials on managing diseases of vegetable crops organically with biopesticides, resistant varieties and other cultural practices. She also works with growers to diagnose problems developing on their farm and to identify suitable management programs. She is located at the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center where she has been working since 1988.
Christine Smart, Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University, Geneva NY. Chris studies primarily bacterial and water mold pathogens of vegetables, working with growers to combine cultural practices and resistant varieties for disease control. She has been working at Cornell University’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva since 2003.
Beth K. Gugino, Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, Beth is the vegetable extension plant pathologist at Penn State. She works with growers, extension educators and other ag service personnel to identify, monitor and forecast disease outbreaks as well as develop and evaluate innovative, sustainable disease management strategies that can be cost-effectively incorporated into IPM programs by growers for increased yield and profitability.
Amanda Gevens is an Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. Her extension-research program focuses on diseases of potato.
Pamela D. Roberts, University of Florida. Pam conducts research and extension programs on the diagnosis, pathogen characterization, epidemiology, and integrated management of diseases on vegetable and citrus. She has been working at the University of Florida since 1997 and is located at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center in Immokalee, Florida.
This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.