Location: Horticultural Crops Disease and Pest Management Research Unit
Project Number: 2072-22000-046-036-I
Project Type: Interagency Reimbursable Agreement
Start Date: Jun 1, 2023
End Date: Sep 30, 2024
Objective:
1.Identify the high risk strawberry viruses in the U.S.
2. Develop reliable information on virus distribution as well as develop improved strawberry virus detection methods.
Approach:
1. Strawberry leaf samples will be collected from nurseries (G2, G3 and G4 blocks) in each region and assayed for all known strawberry viruses (Martin et al., 2006 and the references below) in three seasons. In addition, samples will be collected from commercial fields and native rosaceous plants to determine which viruses are present in the field and surrounding flora. This will inform us of the potential risks that need to be accounted for in nurseries. The sampling will be primarily from nurseries but follow up sample collections from production fields of various ages and also from native plants will follow particularly if we find-high risk or unusual viruses in nurseries for a given region.
2. Develop map of continental U.S. with high-risk strawberry virus pathogens by region, provide the information to State Departments of Agriculture and nurseries, and add information to the Specialty Crops Pathogen Database so it is updateable as future.
3. Coordinate with State Departments of Agriculture that are planning or already running evaluation of the proposed guidelines to incorporate the ‘high risk’ pathogen information into their studies.
4. Carry out high throughput sequencing on native Fragaria vesca, F. chiloensis and F. virginiana from the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. This will be done to determine whether there are viruses in native stands in major production region that pose a potential threat to nursery production and trade.
