CALS joins national network to help protect U.S. agriculture against introduced pests; Programs & People Summer 2004

CALS joins national network to help protect U.S. agriculture against introduced pests

In response to the Agricultural Bioterrorism Protection Act of 2002, the nation's land-grant universities have joined a nationwide Homeland Security effort to rapidly detect and contain potentially devastating new pests—particularly any that are deliberately introduced.

The Idaho State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) and the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service have long watched vigilantly for pests on invasive species lists and those "of concern" to specific agricultural industries. But in addition to those pests, many other kinds of insects, nematodes, diseases, weeds, and unusual crop damage have routinely been addressed by land-grant university personnel. With no centralized database system in place outside regulatory agencies, widely dispersed faculty typically recorded these incidences in their files, where the information might not be pooled or easily accessed.

Now—like so many other things since 9-11—that will change, says Krishna Mohan, UI extension plant pathologist at Parma and coordinator of CALS's participation in the National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN).

Beginning this growing season, university personnel will enter their data into a single web-based reporting system. If CALS entomologists, plant pathologists, nematologists, or weed scientists can't identify a sample or if they suspect it's a high-risk pest, they will follow strictly established protocols for diagnosis and communication. All relevant information will flow through the Western Plant Diagnostic Network (WPDN) at the University of California-Davis to the NPDN, where it will be deposited into the National Agricultural Pest Information System at Purdue University.

Processing centers in Moscow, Parma
According to Mohan, laboratories on the main UI campus at Moscow will become processing centers for weeds and insects. Disease identification will be the official responsibility of his laboratory at Parma, which will soon have a full-time diagnostician supported by WPDN funds. "First detectors"— typically county extension educators, fieldmen, and consultants on the front lines of pest monitoring— will be trained in pest surveillance and sample collection. And CALS faculty with diagnostic responsibilities will now have access to numerous online resources—including image libraries—to help them identify pests.

More eyes on the ground will help
Describing the NPDNs development as "great," principal ISDA microbiologist Liz Vavricka says, "The more eyes on the ground that are aware of what's going on and the larger picture that everybody sees, the more quickly someone will be able to recognize a pattern." In addition, as she is researching pests banned by potential importers of Idaho products, Vavricka can click on a single university database and determine whether that pest has ever been reported in Idaho. Access to the entire database will be limited to a few key personnel to prevent misuse.

Contact Mohan at kmohan@uidaho.edu

--by Marlene Fritz

ALTHOUGH NOT DELIBERATELY INTRODUCED, a particularly damaging race of Ralstonia solanacearum, which causes bacterial wilt in ornamental geraniums, represents the type of threat for which the NPDN was intended. Entering the U.S. through normal commerce from Kenya in 2002 and again from Guatemala in 2003, the soil- and water-borne Ralstonia kills geraniums but can also wilt potato shoots, rot potato tubers, and damage several other crops. To protect Idaho’s potato industry, Idaho greenhouses that purchased geraniums from contaminated foreign suppliers cooperated fully in the plants’ destruction.

“This was an accidental introduction,” says Mohan. “But there is always the possibility that a person with bad intentions could spread a pathogen that would ultimately harm our agricultural production and biosecurity.”