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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Corvallis, Oregon » Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #369338

Research Project: Genetic Improvement of Blackberry, Red and Black Raspberry, Blueberry, and Strawberry

Location: Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit

Title: Improving plant propagation methods for fruit disease control

Author
item TZANETAKIS, I - UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS
item MARTIN, ROBERT

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/15/2018
Publication Date: 9/9/2019
Citation: Tzanetakis, I.E., Martin, R.R. 2019. Improving plant propagation methods for fruit disease control. In: Xu, X., Fountain, M., editors. Integrated Management of Diseases and Insect Pests of Tree Fruit. Cambridge, UK: Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing. p. 275-288. http://dx.doi.org/10.19103/AS.2019.0046.13.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429266690

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The new technologies that have emerged in the last ten years allow for the rapid and accurate characterization of the pathogens that are present in a plant. Known as next generation or high throughput sequencing (NGS or HTS, respectively) those technologies come in different platforms and capacities, with all having a common denominator: they provide massive amounts of sequence data which, when appropriately processed through designated bioinformatics pipelines, can determine the biome of the material tested. HTS is largely unbiased but cannot determine if a new agent is a pathogen or a benign endophyte. Our ability to identify the new agents are largely based on previous knowledge – the bioinformatics pipelines compare the data to known sequences and protein motifs. If a new agent is different enough from everything that has been characterized and deposited in the databases the bioinformatics pipelines may not recognize it as a potential pathogen and rather assign it to ‘sequence unknown’, a term used to describe the ‘noise’ of the technology. In this chapter we will focus on methodologies that eliminate and safeguard against systemic pathogens that affect clonally propagated fruit crops.