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Project Leader: William Turechek, Cornell
University
Type of grant: Cultural methods; sanitation;
physical controls.
Project location: All of NY.
Abstract:
Most strawberry growers in New York establish
commercial fields with runner plants purchased from local or out-of-state
nurseries. Two important diseases of strawberry in New York, anthracnose
and angular leaf spot, are known to be associated with nursery plants.
Even though these pathogens are capable of surviving in plant debris
and other hosts, nurseries are often blamed as the source of the pathogen
when new plantings develop disease. Anthracnose can travel on senescent
tissue or on soil particles on runner transplants when shipped or, possibly,
within crown tissue. Angular leaf spot is known to reside within the
crown tissue. Currently, nurseries are not required to certify their
plants free of anthracnose or angular leaf spot. The objective of this
experiment was to determine the presence and importance of these pathogens
on nursery stock. Strawberry plants of several commonly-grown varieties
were purchased from nurseries across North America. Half of the plants
were potted and grown in a greenhouse to quantify viability and to observe
if any disease symptoms would develop. Isolations from the crown tissue
of the remaining plants were done to screen for the two pathogens. With
one exception, all plants were free from anthracnose. Suspect bacteria
were isolated from many crowns and PCR analysis to identify the pathogen
has been completed for one quarter of the isolates; all tested negative.
From the limited sampling that we have done, it appears that contamination
from either of these pathogens is not, at least, a perennial problem
of the nursery.
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