Integrated Research and Education of Hawaii's Agricultural Community and University Students

Non-Technical Summary:<br/>
This is an integrated Research proposal. It combines our expertise in Research with the goal of helping the agricultural community. This community ranges from small local growers, larger growers and producers, landscape maintenance, parks and arboretum health, native forest and endangered species, new crops for Hawaii, many different host plants, and even the occasional home owner. This focus will direct our funding applications to projects that support extension as well as basic research. Our basic research has been with taxonomy and nomenclature of the fungal pathogens, molecular studies to trace pathogen populations within the State, and movement of pathogens internationally. Our goal is to prevent more invasive species from entering our fragile tropical ecosystem. We have specific projects that focus on local grower's problems and work in that community to provide disease diagnosis, identify causal organism, develop disease control strategies and educate growers. Grower and employee education is crucial to excellent disease control. Employees who are knowledgeable are the best scouts and can locate diseases when they first begin. Owners who understand the behavior and survival methods of the pathogens can often think of cultural practices that are difficult to implement but are successful. This is a true measure of our achievement as researchers and scientist that support the economic stability of the community.The island ecosystem makes the use of many effective fungicides impossible because of the rapid movement of pesticides from fields to the coastal ecosystems. My research program is closely tied to the needs of the local growers and I have a 20% FTE in Extension. Thus many disease control programs are conducted to develop pathogen management systems that are sustainable and useful to local farmers. This gives growers options for controlling devastating diseases. Along with my cooperators, we hold meetings with growers to continually communicate and educate them about topic such as: how the disease begins, what are early signs of the disease, what cultural methods will decrease disease spread and what control options are currently available. We commonly conduct highly successful demonstration trials in the grower's fields to encourage community participation and group learning. The community meeting also gives the growers an opportunity to express their concerns and gives us a good informal time to increase education and reduce confusion.
<P>
Approach:<br/>
Identification of the casual organism of disease: Visit the farm, nursery, forest, or other sites with the disease problems and obtain an understanding of the disease severity, mode of spread, sites of inoculum generation, cultural methods that might help immediately (sanitation, moisture control), and provide the grower with an opportunity to express his ideas. Collect the diseased plants and at the lab, make a quick check for bacteria and nematodes. If nematodes are found, send some of the diseased material to the laboratory of Brent Sipes for assay and if bacteria are found, send the specimen to Anne Alvarez's lab. Isolate the potential fungal pathogens and establish pure cultures on vegetable juice agar plates. Grow disease free plants and inoculate with the fungi that were isolated. Culture the fungal isolate to be tested and produce a high number of spores on V8 juice agar. Prepare a spore suspension and inoculate 5 to 10 plants and monitor every few days. After symptoms develop, confirm the symptoms caused by the pathogen (the symptom must match those of the original disease), obtain diseased sections and re-isolate the fungus, that was used for the inoculation. For some diseases molecular methods must be employed to determine: if there are more than one strain of the pathogen, if new strains are entering the State, how diverse the population of the pathogen is, how closely related the pathogen are on all islands, is the pathogen population changing to infect new hosts, and other similar objectives best approached with molecular methods. Develop Disease Control Strategies by reviewing the disease and field situation and developing control options. If the pathogen is new, fungicides will be pre-screen in agar tests to reduce the number of fungicides that needs to be tested in the field. Our treatments will always include low risk environmentally-friendly fungicides, that degrade rapidly in the environment. Plan and implement greenhouse or field testing, to identify and pursue registration of effective fungicides. For field crops we try to reduce field disease levels by reducing moisture, increasing organic matter in the soil, increase microbial population in the soil, use solar heat to kill soil pathogens, employ biocontrols to reduce pathogen populations, screen varieties for resistance, and try different types of soil amendments. Many of these options are very important for organic growers. Meet with growers and the community to keep them informed of the research results. Continue collaborations with national and international colleagues to prevent new pathogens or strains from entering the state. Work on the ohia rust involved collaboration with pathologist from Florida, California, Central and South America, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Pacific Islands and other countries. Introduce the grower to students and have field trips enabling the students to understand the plight of the grower and the environmental complications present. Have students think about what could be the cause of the grower's problems and how we should address it. These skills are critical for student development into responsible citizens.