Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab
Yesterday, I was lamenting about the heat and how even in the heat we can still see plant diseases occurring. Well, I got an email from Dr. Todd Watson – arborist extraordinaire and the current president of the Texas chapter International Society of Arboriculture (ISAT). The email began with ” TEXAS IN EPIC DROUGHT – WATER TREES NOW!”. In case you are not from Texas, it has been hot and DRY in most parts of Texas. It is so dry that it is affecting establish trees. Back in… Read More →
This Monday morning was not a good one. Upon arriving at the Plant Clinic, I heard an annoying beeping sound from our minus 80 freezer. Coupled with the warm room, it dawned on me that the air conditioning was not functioning. Checking the logs, I surmised that the ambient temperature in the lab was out of range as of 11:00pm (2300) yesterday night. To make things even more annoying, it was only our wing of the building (on the first floor) that had our a/c out-of-order, even the… Read More →
I apologize for the long silence as the schedule has just been crazy for the past 3 weeks. In early August, both the Plant Clinic diagnostician and I, and a bunch of our Texas A&M colleagues made our way to Hawaii for the Annual American Phytopathological Society meeting. This was a joint meeting with the the International Association for Plant Protection Sciences (IAPPS). That meant lots of folks from all around the world, and a bunch of interesting research that was presented along with discussion of situation with agriculture in… Read More →
It’s the end of the week again. A review of the events and happening in the lab with my staff brought some some concerns. One that turned to a request is ” Please write a blogpost on oak wilt submission”. Apparently, we have been getting quite a number of samples for oak wilt but some of them have not been “good” samples or arrived in proper packaging to give us the best chance for recovery of a potential pathogen. So the following is a short primer on oak… Read More →
Yesterday while reading the Sunday papers, I came across an article on potential herbicide damage in landscape. I was a little surprised that this news showed up here but I get the problem must have gotten worse over the past month. The story goes that a new herbicide, Imprelis™ which is produced by DuPont, may have cause a detrimental damage to conifers, primarily Norway Spruce and White Pine. This problems has been noted in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and a bunch or other states in the northeast and… Read More →
