Farmers in Washington , Alaska , Oregon , and other United States Department of State develop the paeony for a thriving domestic market , but these raiser are often hinder when diseases mint their harvest .
Instead of arresting salad days , they ’re leave with droop , ill plants and few flower to sell . Often , they ’re not sure on the dot what is assault their plant .
Andrea Garfinkel and Gary Chastagner , scientists at Washington State University , have been study the diseases that spite peonies . As a doctoral pupil and then postdoctoral investigator , Garfinkel made the search for mystery pathogens her peculiarity .
In a late issue of Plant Health Progress , Garfinkel and Chastagner related their belated discoveries : a slating of Modern diseases previously unidentified in paeony .
appraise pathological paeony from 12 land , the squad identified 10 fungal or fungus - like pathogen , include five groups of related to mintage never previously report in the U.S. The project reveals a broad kitchen range of disease culprits for the crop than scientists expected .
“ Once you know what you ’re up against , you’re able to make better decisions about how to protect your crops , ” Garfinkel said .
Left : Garfinkel inspects peony plants on a Northwest farm . Her recognition of nearly a XII unreported disease helps growers more effectively protect their valuable ornamental crop . mightily : A peony flora show discoloration from measles because of Graphiopsis chlorocephala , one of the pathogens distinguish by Garfinkel in her two‑year undertaking .
Looking for mystery pathogensHealthy peony are big and showy , with lots of blank , pink , or ruby-red flower petal .
“ Their foliation is quite beautiful , too , ” said Garfinkel . “ obscure greenish and full of stem and foliage , emerging in the spring and live on all through the fall . ”
In contrast , sickish peony sport splotches of brown and purpleness , with few stems and decayed flowers .
Garfinkel ’s project had its genesis in a federally funded study of a fungous disease called Botrytis . However , she frequently receive other disease that growers and other scientists had n’t seen before .
Funded by the Western Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program and the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers , Garfinkel surveyed fields for disease in Washington , Alaska and Oregon . Growers and Extension agents around the res publica also send off sample of suspected pathogen .
The WSU squad cultured the fungus from pathological plants , extracted DNA , examined it nearly , and identified it . Often , they would examine it on healthy plants to confirm that what they found was actually an agent of disease . In a single year , they diagnosed more than 350 peony sampling for the survey .
Same symptoms , big differencesIt demand some training to be able to separate the piffling difference between peony diseases by sight alone , Garfinkel say . Symptoms may look the same , but different pathogen may overwinter in different way , bring on spore at different time , and those spores may necessitate specific conditions to germinate .
“ All of these departure mean treatment strategies can be quite different from one pathogen to the next , ” she said .
The ten pathogen they identified represent a “ tremendous increase in the number of diseases that we know are on peony in the U.S. , ” Garfinkel say . “ Most if not all of these diseases have in all probability been in peony for a long fourth dimension . It ’s just that nobody ’s attend hard to see out what they are . ”
Her resume helps establish a baseline armory of disease , and a start point for future scientist to valuate new or emerging outbreaks .
“ Outside the Pacific Northwest , I suspect we are just scraping the surface of what we can learn about peony diseases , ” Garfinkel say . “ If we uphold to look more profoundly in other parts of the area , we ’ll put on a clearer picture of how crucial these diseases are for production . ”
Source : Washington State University ( Seth Truscott )
