Soilborne Disease

The TAES plant pathology program in Amarillo/Bushland, lead by Dr. Charlie Rush, was initiated in 1986 to conduct research on economically damaging diseases of crops produced in the Texas Panhandle. Currently the lab is composed of three post docs, three technicians, and several graduate students and student workers from West Texas A&M University. Major research projects, all funded by external competitive grants, include ecology and epidemiology of karnal bunt, remote sensing to differentiate between biotic and abiotic stresses, management of sorghum ergot, and genomic variability among Benyviruses. Although Dr. Rush has no official extension responsibilities, his lab has provided plant disease diagnostic services since the lab’s inception, and recently they have established a satellite diagnostic laboratory to the Great Plains Regional Diagnostic Laboratory at Kansas State University, part of the Homeland Security Plant Disease Diagnostic Network. Dr. Rush’s lab is the only USDA-APHIS approved Karnal Bunt Quarantine Research Lab in the Southern Great Plains, and as such, provides a phytosanitary seed certification service that allows Texas producers to sale seed wheat outside of the state.

Steddom, G. Heidel, D. Jones, and C.M. Rush. 2003. Remote Detection of Rhizomania in Sugar Beets. Phytopathology 93: 720-726.

Workneh, F., Villanueva E., Steddom, K., and C.M. Rush. 2003. Spatial Association and Distribution of Beet Necrotic Yellow Vein Virus and Beet soilborne Mosaic Virus in Sugar Beet Fields. Plant Disease 87: 707 – 711.

Rush, C.M. 2003. Ecology and Epidemiology of Benyviruses and Plasmodiophorid Vectors. Annual Review Phytopathology 41:567 – 592.

Harveson, R.M. and C.M. Rush. 2002. The influence of irrigation and cultivar blends on the severity of multiple root diseases of sugar beets. Plant Disease 86: 901-908.

Workneh, F., and C.M. Rush. 2002. Evaluation of relationships between weather patterns and prevalence of sorghum ergot in the Texas Panhandle. Phytopathology 92:659-666.