$1 Million In Grant Funding For Onion Research In Washington

Plant pathologists at Washington State University (WSU) have won more than $1 million grant funding to participate in a multi-state team of scientists and industry professionals to create management tools to improve the profitability of the onion industry.

Brenda Schroeder, an assistant professor in the WSU Department of Plant Pathology, is one of five co-principal investigators on the team directed by Howard Schwartz of Colorado State University and James VanKirk of North Carolina State University on a $2.4 million grant from USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative. She also was recently awarded funding from the Western Regional Integrated Pest Management grant program.

The long-term goals of the project are to develop, fully deploy and evaluate a sustainable online information-management platform called Onion ipmPIPE – Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education – to integrate innovative diagnostic tools and optimize sound pest management decision-making in specialty crops such as onions. Onion growers especially need diagnostics for Iris yellow spot virus, bacterial and fungal diseases, insect pests and vectors like thrips; and an integrated pest management ipmPIPE infrastructure and access to information from the team of specialists.

Hanu Pappu, professor of plant pathology and an expert on tospoviruses in vegetables, will coordinate virus archiving in Washington and six other cooperating states and enhance virus diagnostics. A critical component of the development of the Onion ipmPIPE is the collection and distribution of data in real-time for immediate access and use by the stakeholders. Lindsey du Toit, associate professor of plant pathology, located at the WSU Northwestern Washington Research and Extension Center at Mount Vernon, will oversee the data collection relative to fungal diseases, thrips, IYSV and bacterial diseases from onion Sentinel Plots in the Columbia Basin. Finally, Schroeder, du Toit and Pappu will work closely with Extension Educators Timothy Waters and Carrie Wohleb to deliver the information collected by this project to onion stakeholders in the Pacific Northwest via presentations at the Pacific Northwest Vegetable Association Conference and the WSU Onion Cultivar Field Day.

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Source: Washington State University news release