When stars make an appearance in Hollywood the paparazzi are sure to follow, cameras in tow. In Santa Cruz it seems that is not the case, not unless you count the handycam my fellow blogger, Janice Alexander, set-up. Though we had the world’s best and brightest the only fanfare was a round of applause after the celebrities gave their presentations. Who were these cynosures you ask? World leaders in the field of Phytophthora.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be working to digitize, edit and post the talks from the Fourth Sudden Oak Death Science Symposium, but until that work is complete, I’d like to highlight a few of the informative and inspirational presentations.
The first-up on my Top 10 list is a talk given by Dr. Jennifer Parke, plant pathologist at Oregon State University.
Dr. Parke presented her lab’s work, done in collaboration with Dr. Nik Grünwald’s lab at USDA-ARS Corvallis, on a systems approach to detecting sources of Phytophthora contamination in nurseries. The system, modeled after the food industries Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) which ensures food products are not contaminated during processing, focuses on Critical Control Points (CCPs) that is points at which a serious hazard of Phytophthora contamination can be controlled.
Over the last 3 years, Parke and Grünwald have worked with four nurseries on identifying the CCPs in nursery production and developing best management practices to mitigate contamination. Though the study focuses on Phytophthora, a closer look at the best management practices quickly reveals its application to controlling other pathogens.
The icing on the cake? The researchers have designed a free online course for nursery growers to help them identify and learn to manage Phytophthora diseases in their operations.
"Despite all of this wonderful work, we still don't have all of the answers we need to effectively control and manage Sudden Oak Death in our forests and yards." When I read this ending to Janice's blog on Monday it reminded me of all the work that still needs to be done, but more importantly all the work that has been done.
Someone sent me a link to a YouTube video recently and watching it felt like I had discovered an artifact in a time machine. The video, simply titled "Sudden Oak Death" , is a UC Television production that I believe was filmed in 2001. If you have time, listening to the Quest program juxtaposed to watching (even a small part of) this video makes you realize how much has been discovered in the last 8 years.
Photo courtesy of MauroTaborelli
Researchers, many of whom will be a the upcoming Fourth Sudden Oak Death Science Symposium, have been working extremely hard to understand the biology and management of Phytophthora ramorum. The tag-line for the Quest show likened Sudden Oak Death to the Swine Flu, another infective agent getting a lot of attention these days. P. ramorum is infecting (and killing) a large number of trees, but the life, and therefore biology, of oaks is measured in years, if not decades. The study of P. ramorum is a relatively slow and, I imagine, sometimes frustrating process. But on this early morning, looking back, I wanted to say thanks to all those that work so tirelessly to give us answers.
