Partnering in plant health: Improving our understanding of fruit tree diseases in Kansas

View the project final report

Commodities

• Fruits: apples

Practices

• Crop Production: application rate management, cropping systems, disease/pest management
• Education and Training: extension, focus group, technical assistance
• Pest Management: chemical control, cultural control, disease vectors, field monitoring/scouting, integrated pest management, traps, weather monitoring
• Sustainable Communities: partnerships

This project will enhance knowledge of fruit production problems in Kansas while strengthening relationships between growers and Kansas State University/K-State Research and Extension. A group of growers have identified several fruit tree production problems as critical areas for research and extension. The central Great Plains is a challenging environment for fruit production due to weather extremes which drive abiotic stresses, disease problems, and insect pressure. The overall goal of this partnership is to increase our understanding of fruit tree disease development in Kansas to develop sustainable disease management strategies. A prime case study will be the apple disease fire blight, but we will gather data on other fruit tree diseases as well as environmental stresses and insect pests. The project will integrate aspects of research, education, and outreach and will provide growers training with data collection. The project will have short-term impact by increasing knowledge of the grower/university team of current disease/pest development and disease losses, and training growers on some data assessment methods. In the medium term we will share findings with other growers, prioritize and and plan for additional research and extension programs, and build collaborations. Long term the project will lead to more sustainable management practices.

The overall goal of this partnership program is to increase our understanding of fruit tree disease development and insect pests in Kansas to optimize sustainable management strategies. Our original objectives were: to quantify losses in tree fruit crop yield and quality due to diseases and insects with a special focus on fire blight of apple, explore relationships between current grower practices and disease and insect development in light of Kansas weather conditions, train growers in on-farm disease and insect assessment, share information with industry, and establish a solid foundation to prioritize future extension and research programs and collaborations. We had to scale back and modify the project due to the covid19 pandemic.