Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander Jr
Office: 607-255-3290
E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Journalists are invited to visit Poland June 6 - 8 to see evidence of the increasing threat of potato late blight, the fungus-like pathogen responsible for the Irish potato famine. As the pathogen gains resistance to metalaxyl, the commonly applied fungicide, it is again becoming virulent.
As researchers look for ways to contain the disease, the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- Foreign Agriculture Service (USDA) and the Cornell-Eastern Europe-Mexico (CEEM) International Collaborative Project in Potato Late Blight Control partnership are sponsoring an international workshop at the Hotel Gromada, Warsaw, Poland. The main objective of the workshop, "Collaborative Research on Potato Late Blight: Building Strategies and Synergies," will be to review progress and shape the future for research on potato late blight control.
As part of the conference, there will be a June 7 field day at the Mlochow Research Center of the Plant Breeding and Acclimatization Institute (IHAR). Journalists will see greenhouse and laboratory experiments being performed on the pathogen, tuber and foliar blight, potato varieties resistant to the pathogen, and newly emerging plants growing in the research field.
The development of late blight-resistant potato plants will be explained, and testing with germplasm materials will be demonstrated. Also on view will be experiments related to the use of biotechnology research in identifying the pathogen's different strains.
Potato late blight is the disease blamed for the Irish potato famine that resulted in more than a million deaths in the 1840s. In recent decades, it has been kept under control by using agronomic practices, fungicides and resistant potato varieties. However, new strains of late blight are now able to overcome the plant's single-gene resistance.
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EDITORS: You are invited to attend the field day and the workshop. You also are invited to interview any of the scientists in attendance. They are from Peru, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hungary, Scotland, Ireland, Poland, Russia, the United States, Mexico and Canada. Also, Polish media are welcome to contact Ewa Zimnoch-Guzowska, IHAR, at 48-22-729-9248 or e-mail