Plant Diseases That Threaten

U.S. Agriculture

 

Identified and Prepared For Under the

National Plant Disease Recovery System

 

 

The National Plant Disease Recovery System (NPDRS) is called for in Homeland Security Presidential Directive Number 9 (HSPD-9) which was issued in February of 2004.   The purpose of the NPDRS is to ensure that the tools, infrastructure, communication networks, and capacity required to mitigate the impact of high consequence plant disease outbreaks are such that a reasonable level of crop production is maintained in the U.S.

 

Each recovery plan listed below is intended to provide a brief primer on a threatening disease, assess the status of critical recovery components, and identify disease management research, extension, and education needs for that disease.   These recovery plans are not intended to be stand-alone documents that address all of the many and varied aspects of a plant disease outbreak and all of the decisions that must be made and actions taken to achieve effective response and recovery.   They are, however, documents that will help USDA and others guide efforts directed toward preparation for and recovery from new plant diseases in the U.S.

 

The plans are a cooperative effort of university, industry, and government scientists sponsored by The American Phytopathological Society (APS) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).  The pathogens discussed in these plans have been nominated as critical threats to U.S. agricultural production and reviewed at annual workshops of APS and USDA held in April of 2006, April of 2007, October of 2008, and March of 2011.   The content and recommendations of those meetings can be viewed at http://www.apsnet.org/meetings/topicalmeetings/NPDRS/Pages/default.aspx.

 

Table 1. Recovery plans completed, being developed, and completed but being updated.

rECOVERY PLAN	PATHOGEN	CHAIR	STATUS & Links*
Bacterial leaf blight and leaf streak of rice	Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae and X. oryzae pv. oryzicola	Jan Leach jan.leach@colostate.edu	Being developed
Citrus leprosis	Citrus leprosis virus	Ron Brlansky rhby@ufl.edu	Being developed
Citrus variegated chlorosis (CVC)	Xylella fastidiosa	Kent Smith kent.smith@ars.usda.gov	Completed
Cotton leaf curl	Cotton leaf curl virus	Judy Brown  jbrown@ag.arizona.edu	Being developed
Cyst and rootknot nematode diseases	Heterodera spp. and Meloidogyne spp.	Tom Powers  tpowers@unl.edu	Being developed
Brown stripe downy mildew and Philippine downy mildew of corn	Sclerophthora rayssiae var. zeae and Peronosclerospora philippinensis	Clint Magill c-magill@tamu.edu	Completed but being updated
Huanglongbing (HLB) of citrus	Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, L. africanus, and L. americanus	Julius Fajardo julius.fajardo@ars.usda.gov	Completed but being updated
Late wilt of corn	Harpophora maydis	Don Huber huberd@purdue.edu	Completed
Laurel wilt of avocado	Raffaelea lauricola	Randy Ploetz rcp@ifas.ufl.edu	Completed
Laurel wilt of redbay	Raffaelea lauricola	Bud Mayfield amayfield02@fs.fed.us	Completed
Plum pox or sharka	plum pox virus (PPV)	Marc Fuchs  mf13@cornell.edu	Completed but being updated
Potato wart	Synchytrium endobioticum	Ray Hammerschmidt hammersr@anr.msu.edu	Completed but being updated
Ralstonia bacterial wilt of potato and geranium	Ralstonia solanacearum , race 3, biovar 2	Caitilyn Allen cza@plantpath.wisc.edu	Completed but being updated
Rathayibacter poisoning	Rathayibacter toxicus	Anne Vidaver avidaver1@unl.edu	Completed
Red leaf blotch (RLB) of soybean	Phoma glycinicola	Glen Hartman ghartman@uiuc.edu	Completed
Scots pine blister rust	Cronartium flaccidum	Mee-Sook Kim mkim@fs.fed.us	Completed
Stem rust of wheat (Ug99)	Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici	Tim Murray tim_murray@wsu.edu	Completed
Thousand cankers disease of walnut	Geosmithia sp.	Ned Tisserat ned.tisserat@colostate.edu	Being developed
Tree and shrub diseases caused by P. kernoviae	Phytophthora kernoviae	Mike Benson mike_benson@ncsu.edu	Completed
Wheat blast	Magnaporthe grisea	Barbara Valent bvalent@ksu.edu	Being developed

*Completed and completed but being updated recovery plans are linked to this site.

 

Two overriding concerns discussed at our annual workshops are how to deal with the thousands of documented and ever increasing list of exotic diseases and pests that may enter the United States and how to prepare for those threats that are yet unknown? One possible solution is the development of generic recovery plans that will cover groups of pathogens and pests based on a core set of common attributes. These generic recovery plans would account for all types of pathogens that could arrive or emerge and would serve as the templates to which agent-specific and system-relevant information could be added to optimize the utility of the plan. When a new pathogen is detected, one of the generic plans could be used to quickly assemble a new, agent-specific recovery plan. How many and what types of generic recovery plans are needed will be determined and validated. The existing list of NPDRS recovery plans provides a good start. Future APS/USDA workshops are planned to resolve this issue and to develop new plans.  

 

Please direct any questions or comments concerning NPDRS to Julius Fajardo.