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Sick crops? Who ya gonna call? UNL Plant Pathology has website, labNebraska Internet-savvy consumers have been getting health and medical advice from the World Wide Web for years. But how many farmers know that the Web also can help them diagnose and manage diseases in their crops? Plant Disease Central, a joint effort of several University of Nebraska-Lincoln plant pathology specialists across the state, has been on-line for six or seven years. But the website has recently been revamped and redesigned, according to Dr. Bob Harveson, plant pathologist at the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research and Extension Center. Increased attention is given to sugar beet and bean diseases that are problems in western Nebraska, according to Harveson. Like weather, weeds and insects, diseases cut into farmers' yields in a big way. To avoid major financial loss, producers need to monitor for diseases, identify them when they occur, and apply management strategies if they could exceed the economic threshold. Plant Disease Central can help in each of these areas. To surf to Plant Disease Central, type "pdc.unl.edu" into a browser window. Once there, a visitor will find a number of useful features: --A crop-by-crop list of the most common plant diseases, including information such as disease cycles, identification photos, symptoms, pathogens that cause each disease and environmental conditions that favor its spread, and recommendations for managing it. The list includes not only crops that are common throughout most of Nebraska--corn, wheat, alfalfa, sorghum and soybean--but now crops that are unique to western Nebraska, including sugar beet, dry bean, sunflowers and chickpea. --Disease forecasts for Cercospera leaf spot and other diseases. --Sections on trees, ornamental shrubs, backyard fruits and vegetables. Harveson is making plans to add more features to Plant Disease Central. He'd like to expand the crop-by-crop section to include all the major diseases encountered by growers in western Nebraska, as well as some of the more obscure diseases. Timely updates on critical diseases, such as Cercospera leaf spot, a problem for sugar beets, will be provided during the key time of the growing season. Links to this update will be provided from the Panhandle Center's web page at http://www.panhandle.unl.edu . Another goal is to provide complete results from the Panhandle Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab. Since 1999 the lab, based at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center, has analyzed an average of 1,000 plant or soil samples annually from all types of crops, but mostly sugar beets. In addition to plant samples, the lab tests soil samples over the winter for the presence pathogens that might cause diseases in fields to be planted to sugar beets the following spring. Harveson and his staff have identified numerous new or unusual diseases in the Panhandle, and generated new UNL publications on seven diseases that have been identified and brought to light due to this diagnostic service. The plant disease clinic in Scottsbluff is one of two in Nebraska, the other being in Lincoln. Both are part of the Great Plains Diagnostic Network, a regional hub of the National Plant Diagnostic Network. This system was established by the USDA Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service in 2002 to develop timely diagnostic capabilities for emerging or threatening diseases of concern to the nation's agricultural system. Harveson said Nebraska is the only state with more than one laboratory. In the past, results from the plant clinics have been included in statewide reports. But Harveson said Panhandle-specific results would be more useful to growers in this part of the state, where both the climate and the crops grown are vastly different than eastern Nebraska. The Panhandle Research and Extension Center is at http://www.panhandle.unl.edu.
Date: 5/8/08
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