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UF/IFAS Researchers Honored for Avocado Integrated Pest Management
2019 Florida Agricultural Experiment Station
Research Awards Ceremony at the Harn Museum of
Art on May 16, 2019
University
of Florida (UF) officials recognized a team of research scientists with
a High Impact Research Publication award for an article published in
the May 2018 edition of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, an
international scholarly science journal.
The publication,
“Identification of the Achilles heels of the laurel wilt pathogen and
its beetle vector,” introduces new pest management tactics for South
Florida’s avocado growers. The industry’s value is $100 million-a-year
to producers who are mostly in Miami-Dade County.
But every
season, growers face ambrosia beetles that spread a fungal pathogen
that causes a disease called laurel wilt. The disease wilts and then
browns tree leaves, killing entire trees in only a few weeks.
Seven
scientists and technicians with the UF Institute of Food and
Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) co-authored the honored paper. These
scientists are committed to developing ongoing integrated pest
management practices to protect the valuable commercial crop industry.
“The
data reported in this paper supported simple recommendations to help
control laurel wilt, advancing the scientific knowledge of this
devastating disease,” said Sherry Larkin, associate dean for UF/IFAS
Research and interim director for Florida Sea Grant. “This is one of
many examples of how UF/IFAS researchers are providing real-world
solutions for Florida farmers, and it was well-deserving of special
recognition at our annual awards ceremony.”
The scientists and laboratory technicians who received the award work
at the UF/IFAS Gainesville campus and at two UF/IFAS research and
education centers.
Award recipients in Gainesville are Nemat
Keyhani, a UF/IFAS professor of microbiology and cell science, and
Yonghong Zhou, a former postdoctoral scientist.
Daniel
Carrillo, assistant professor of entomology and nematology, and his
biological scientist, Rita Duncan, conducted their work at the UF/IFAS
Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, Florida.
Ronald
D. Cave, professor and director of the UF/IFAS Indian River Research
and Education Center (IRREC) in Fort Pierce Florida, along with Pasco
Avery, a biological scientist, and Alison Lukowsky, a technician, who
both also work at IRREC, were part of the honored team.
Carrillo
said the new information for avocado growers involves studies on the
compatibility of common chemical pesticides, and an entomopathogenic
fungus, Beauveria bassiana.
Entomopathogenic fungi infect and kill only insects, and so pose no
harmful threat to humans, non-insect wildlife or plants. The fungus not
only kills the ambrosia beetles that carry the disease-causing
pathogen, but also inhibits the pest’s ability to bore into the wood
where it can spread the plant pathogen.
In a 2014 UF/IFAS news release, Brad Buck explains Carrillo and Avery’s recommended strategy to apply the fungus.
Avocado trees infected with laurel wilt disease.
Trees can die just six to eight weeks after infection.
Avery
used the fungus to determine its compatibility with agrochemical
treatments in his laboratory. He said growers may access the 2018
compatibility studies at the following website:
https://www.bioworksinc.com/products/shared/botanigard-es-tank-mix-compatibility.pdf
“Our
studies are committed to resolving the laurel wilt dilemma with more
precise management practices while the pathogen is still impacting
trees, and to minimize the damage caused by the disease until we find a
cure for laurel wilt,” said Keyhani.
Buck wrote about Keyhani’s
contribution to UF’s recommended management practices in a 2017 news
release. “The disease grows faster in the fall or winter than in the
summer, so growers may want to look for laurel wilt more closely during
the winter,” wrote Buck.
The award-winning publication presents a new tactic to manage healthy and productive avocado trees.
“Growers
should maintain healthy soils and may consider adjusting the pH in
their groves to greater than or equal to 6.8,” Keyhani said. “Because
the fungus that causes laurel wilt is halophilic, it shows a dramatic
decrease in growth at high pH values, and this could help in reducing
persistence of the pathogen in soils, although effects on
beetle-vectored transmission are likely to be minimal.”
Keyhani,
Carrillo, Avery and Cave agree that biological control with
entomopathogenic fungi is one of the best-known methods to manage
ambrosia beetles that carry pathogens into avocado trees.
The
team of scientists is at work on other aspects of the same pathogen
problem, seeking more of laurel wilt’s proverbial “Achilles heels” and
newer management recommendations for avocado producers.
“Fungal
entomopathogens are a tool that must be part of an integrated pest
management program that includes cultural, chemical and other pest
control methods that growers are using widely in Florida,” said Avery.
“The growers are now at a point where the UF/IFAS strategies can allow
them to have a more sustainable pest management program — despite
laurel wilt.”
Source: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
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