WSU Scientist Provides Online Database as Standard Reference

WSU Scientist Provides Online Database as Standard Reference

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

Erysiphales or powdery mildew fungi, is among the world’s most damaging plant diseases. Powdery mildews attack apples, cherries, grapes, hops, wheat, onions, strawberries, gourds, melons and many other economically important crops. Growers spend millions of dollars annually trying to control them, applying more fungicides to control powdery mildews than any other plant pathogen.

For the past decade, Washington State University plant pathologist Dean Glawe has been painstakingly compiling information on the world’s powdery mildews.

Glawe:“So right now the database includes 693 species - that is all of them in the world. We have tools for identifying the powdery mildews based on host plant, on the structures produced by the powdery mildews and the DNA sequences. So, if you are a researcher or a plant diagnosticians we’ve made it possible to identifying these things efficiently with only an internet connection when in the past you would have needed a specialized research library.”

The database enables users to identify powdery mildews, to find information on their host plants, and provides links to online scientific references. The database is available at http://erysiphales.wsu.edu/.

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.