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Research underway to better detect, manage tar spot

Research is underway to better detect and manage tar spot, a disease that is difficult to manage once it appears in corn.

Purdue University Assistant Professor Christian Cruz discusses some of the research his lab is conducting.

“The research I’m conducting right now to improve the ways we can scout for disease includes using imagery with drones and proximal sensing and also some of the methods we’re developing to inoculate and study the disease under controlled environments,” he says.

He tells Brownfield it will take some time to deploy the technology.

“This type of work in reality is in its infancy. If you look at the literature, there is a relatively small number of papers that have been published so far,” he says. “Our lab has been able to publish three papers on the topic, not only with drone imagery but also with proximal sensing. The idea here is to continue to work and improve the methods. We are not there yet in terms of deploying the systems. But we believe we have made progress, especially in the last couple of years. In my case I have hired three post-doctoral researchers and so they’re making great progress. Collaboration is also important. My aim is to have systems ready in the next two to three years.”

Cruz says more research is needed as tar spot is relatively new to the U.S. Tar spot was first identified in Mexico in 1904, but it didn’t arrive to the U.S. until 2015.

“One thing that needs to be researched is what is the pathway associated with the movement of these pathogens. It could be a natural pathway. We’re discussing the possibility of wind currents moving the pathogen around states but is that a possibility for international movement,” he says. “The other question is around environmental conditions that are present right now compared to the previous environmental conditions over the past 100 years. Is there something new or is something changing? What about the humidity or the leaf wetness?  There are many unknowns unfortunately and so only research will help us answer those questions.”

Brownfield spoke to Cruz during the inaugural Tar Spot Summit by AgReliant Genetics. He says he would like to see the research applied to other diseases that could be detected through imagery and prediction.