Project Overview
Commodities
Practices
Proposal abstract:
The emergence and global spread of Neopestalotiopsis as a pathogen affecting strawberry nurseries and fruit production fields threatens a multi-billion-dollar industry. The pathogen often arrives on symptomless nursery plants and has been especially destructive in the warm, humid production regions of the southeastern United States. Under the most favorable conditions, the pathogen will cause complete crop loss, perversely occurring after growers invest over $40,000 per acre to establish a field and before a single berry is harvested. A critical limitation in managing this disease is the inability to detect infections early. The challenge has been described as worse than finding a needle in a haystack; it is finding a needle among many haystacks. Since Neopestalotiopsis is carried on asymptomatic plants, infections can spread undetected. Current molecular detection methods are largely laboratory-based, and have not yet provided the rapid, on-site results needed to halt an epidemic at its inception. In desperation, growers are often forced to make difficult management decisions, including applying multiple fungicide applications without confirmation of disease presence or, in worse cases, to spray fungicides upon diseased plants once an epidemic has progressed beyond the point of no return. To address this need, we propose the development of a tool to directly meet this threat: a rapid, field-deployable LAMP assay for early detection of Neopestalotiopsis.
Project objectives from proposal:
The overall goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a rapid, field-based diagnostic tool for early detection of Neopestalotiopsis in strawberry production systems. This tool aims to improve the timing and effectiveness of disease management decisions and reduce reliance on costly control measures.
Objective 1: Develop and optimize a LAMP assay for detection of Neopestalotiopsis
Assay development will include primer design and optimization of reaction conditions. It will be evaluated for specificity, sensitivity, accuracy, and reproducibility using existing pathogen isolates.
Objective 2: Determine the detection limits of the LAMP assay for detecting Neopestalotiopsis in pooled samples.
This objective will evaluate assay sensitivity for detecting low levels of pathogen presence under conditions representative of nursery screening.
Objective 3: Evaluate LAMP performance on screening nursery transplants.
This objective will compare assay performance to conventional diagnostic methods, including pathogen isolation and qPCR, and assess its applicability in nursery and production systems. Field validation will be conducted using a portable Genie III isothermal amplification device currently available within the research program.