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late blight lesion on potato

Potato late blight lesion.  Image courtesy of Jean Ristaino, NC State University.

Welcome to USA blight, a national website that acts as an information portal on late blight.  You can report disease occurrences, submit a sample online, observe disease occurrence maps, and sign up for text disease alerts.  There are also useful links to a decision support system, and  information about identification and management of the disease.

Late blight of potato and tomato caused by Phytophthora infestans is a devastating disease worldwide and led to the Irish potato famine in 1845. Under favorable weather conditions, tomato and potato crops can be destroyed within days. Yield losses caused by late blight and the cost of control measures have been estimated to exceed 6.7 billion dollars annually and the disease is a major threat to food security worldwide.   

Phytophthora workshop held in India

A workshop on "Rapid Diagnostic Tools for Identification of Phytophthora species on Horticultural Crops " organized by Dr. Jean Ristaino, with the assistance of Dr. Pallem Chowdappa and Dr. David Cooke was held at the ICAR- Central Plantation Crops Research Institute, Bangalore India, Sept 8, 2015 preceding the 3rd International Phytophthora Symposium, Sept 9-12.  Over 120 participants applied for the workshop that included 30 students from diverse research institutes in India. The hands on laboratory training in morphological and molecular identification of Phytophthora species included use of a diagnostic Lucid key, PCR and molecular sequence based identification and rapid assays for identification of Phytophthora infestans.  

A workbook was distributed to workshop participants and is available here

See more on the Global Phytophthora Diagnostic Network on Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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