Guido Schnabel, Ph.D.
State Specialist for Fruit Diseases

The goal of our work is to sustain peach production in the Southeast. One of the major disease problems that we have in South Carolina, but also in Georgia, is a disease we call Brown Rot.

The chemicals that are being used these days to control Brown Rot are site-specific chemicals, that means they attack the fungus at one particular place. So the fungus has a fairly easy way to produce resistance against those chemicals.

So weve developed a kit that will enable growers to determine the resistance profile in their respective areas.   What we do is we go to the growers site.  We collect samples and within 3 days, using that kit, we can determine what kind of resistance profile the grower has in their respective area. So if he right from the bat starts out with the correct sprays, and uses the correct chemicals knowing what resistance profile they have then the success of his treatment is guaranteed.

Besides saving the grower some money and using fewer chemicals, this work has implications for other fruit crops, for all stone fruit crops, because this is a disease that not only affects peaches, it also affects nectarines and cherries and plum.

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