Focus on Potato has released three educational Web seminars aimed at helping potato growers better understand pesticides and manage diseases and insect vectors.
- In the web broadcast titled, "The Value of Pesticides," Jeff Miller, president and CEO of Miller Research in Rupert, Idaho, discusses the value of pesticides. He'll also take a balanced approach and address internet and social media focus on the perceived risk of pesticides that often ignores the benefits.
- Jim Crosslin, a research plant pathologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Prosser, Wash., will look at potato mop top virus in "Potato Mop-top Virus: An Emerging Problem in Potato Production." Crosslin will provide illustrations of some of the symptoms as well as discuss management of this soil-borne virus.
- In "Phytoplasmas in Potatoes", Ian MacRae, Extension entomologist with the University of Minnesota, helps producers and consultants recognize and manage purple top in potatoes. The viral disease is spread by aster leafhoppers. MacRae will talk about the biology of the organism as well as its insect vector, vector control and symptom recognition.
The three presentations will be open access through May.
Focus on Potato is produced by the Plant Management Network, a collaborative effort among the American Phytopathological Society, American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America.
Source: The Grower