Use of airborne inoculum detection for disease management decisions

Abstract

Knowledge of inoculum presence has been used for decades to help guide disease management decisions. However, its implementation on a broad scale has been limited due to the capital costs and technical skill required to effectively monitor pathogen presence across large areas. Recent advances in nucleic acid detection technologies are showing promise in enabling field level implementation of inoculum detection and quantification to aid in disease management decisions. Over the past 7 years we have investigated the use various molecular approaches to monitor the presence of Erysiphe necator in commercial vineyards and time fungicide applications based on its detection. We have found loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) to be a robust method for the detection of E. necator DNA that may be suitable for practitioner implementation.