 Okay, welcome everybody. Let's let's keep this going tonight and we're going to talk about our plant diagnostic lab for NDSU And the question I have for you tonight is have you ever had like a sick tree or a Dying plant or maybe just a spotted tomato bush in your yard. Yeah, of course We've all had those problems But did you know that there is a plant diagnostic lab that can help you? identify and Manage those disorders in your yard, and I think a lot of us don't know about this great resource from NDSU So here to tell us about it is Alex Knudsen. Alex is an entomological diagnostician for NDSU now. Let's welcome to the forum Thank you, Tom, and thank you all for joining me. I'd like to share with you a bit about the plant diagnostic lab here at NDSU Now the plant diagnostic lab has been open for over 50 years and it provides a wide variety of tests and services It's broken up into the plant diagnostic lab itself Which offers horticultural and agronomic diagnostic service and what you'll probably be mostly interested in our horticultural or landscape and garden Diagnostics we also offer the seed health testing lab which run standardized testing for screening of plant pathogens So the lab's purpose it's never a bad idea to start with your local agents But our purpose and our main goal is to help you with your diagnostic needs and what we can provide is unbiased professional results And if you need it we can offer a formal report Sometimes if you have An interesting situation and you need a formal report Especially if you've got squabbles over or something that's going on between you and your neighbor we can offer that for you We can also help you with your horticultural problems if you've got issues with your lawn spots that don't really seem to be grown very right Or you've got garden problems And then of course if you have any trees that seem to be not doing so good or maybe you've got some branches that just look a little funny. We also test field crops and We also offer home mold IDs. So if you're worried if you've got stocky bacterus or something like that feel free to bring in a sample and Lastly, we also offer insect IDs So the lab staff is made up of the director and the lead diagnostician Jesse joined the lab in 2013 and he's currently the lead Diagnostician he's got nine years of diagnostic experience and quite knowledgeable over many different plant diseases and disorders We also have the seed health specialist Christine Nagoan she joined the the lab in july of 2017 and she has a master's in botany from NDSU And she served for over 23 years in the plant pathology department itself And lastly, there's me. I'm just recently Passed by masters defense on friday. So i'll be receiving my masters this this semester And I joined the lab in 2017 And I offer Entomological Identifications as well as different management strategies for you So How we can help? Well, we can assist you with horticultural problems. Like I said with turf garden and trees Home mold IDs and of course the really big nice thing here is there's no fee schedule for homeowner samples So if it comes from your home, we're not going to charge you However, some rare exclusions may apply So if you have a sample that's exceptionally difficult and it really requires a lot of work We may ask you to provide a nominal very small fee But usually almost everything is relatively free So turf Some common diseases you may encounter when your yard or dollar spot and epitome If you don't know what those are what will gladly be able to help you identify those And of course, there are also common abiotic disorders like fertilizer burn And if you like your your lawn to be very short, sometimes that's not a good thing Another thing to keep in mind is thatch how much thatch you have in your lawn can depend on how healthy your lawn is And of course, I can also help you with any insect pests you have with your lawns So if you're going to be sending in samples of turf, uh, you'll want to collect soil or with the grass from the border or the affected area So you always want to capture the marginal Or leading edge of the infection You'll want to wrap the sample and dry paper towels because all plants have a lot of moisture and give off a lot of moisture And you want to pack it securely. So if you send it to us in the mail, it doesn't rattle apart Another thing that we can help you with are your gardens and vegetables and ornamental plants specifically Now there are many different diseases and disorders, but one of the common ones are fungal diseases like downery and powdery powdery mildews Now it's important to note that these are biologically unique organisms So if you decide or if you know that you have a mildew, but you don't know if it's downy or powdery It might depend, uh, or if you select a different fun a fungicide it might not control one or the other Because there are two different types of fungi. So if you want it identified, we're glad they do that for you and help you Determine what what chemicals are best for control Also, if you don't know if you have bacteria or not, that could be another problem And if you have bacterial leaf spots on your plants, well, if you use a fungicide, it's not going to help you very much Lastly We don't test for chemical injury However, we can look at samples and determine if there is chemical injury present and then provide you with the assistance for Following up with testing to see if you need to determine whether or not there has been chemical injury And of course lastly there are pesky animals that get in your gardens like rabbits and deer And of course, there's no pcr test. We can't test for rabbit damage But we can tell you if a rabbit has been eating your carrots Now woody plants are another area we can really help you out with and one of the Biggies that I'd really like to emphasize is dutch elm disease We test it for free. There's no charge for for anybody that brings in a sample for for A dutch elm if they just have a random elm tree in their yard and they want to know if it's got dutch elm We'll gladly test it for you for free and I'd like to emphasize that since it's free here at ndsu Test test your tree before you spend a ton of money cutting it down. Your tree might be just fine um Also, we can help with apple trees and different diseases like fire blight scab and black rot and of course conifers as well and like cankers and mites Now for submitting samples of trees, you'll want to take samples from symptomatic branches So you'll cut the branches On the areas that include healthy as well as affected tissue And usually it's most useful to capture the leading edge of the infection So if you see where the infection is spreading, that's where you want to get the sample from If you send us a completely dead branch. It's all dried up. It's probably not going to be very helpful and lastly insect identifications now Uh, I can offer identification to family or species if necessary And also different management strategies and of course different insects require different management strategies I can also offer tips for prevention And Again, this is free So if you have if you're worried you have bed bugs, but you don't know and you can send us some samples I can identify them for you and tell you if you have bed bugs or not And then decide from there whether you need to Go and control this This you know, this is free So you don't have to spend a ton of money contacting a pest control operator to scout your house out And then pay them and they find that you don't have bed bugs. So I strongly recommend it Now if you're going to send specimens If you have small specimens send them in a vial of alcohol if possible. You can use isopropyl or ethyl alcohol They just just ensures that this small structures stay intact and they don't disintegrate if you have larger specimens like beetles or or Bugs you can pack those in paper towels and then place them in a ziploc bag But please ensure they're dead don't send live arthropods through the mail because You could be sending a problematic pests that could get out and spread to other areas of the state or country So before you send a sample it is 2018 and since many of you are viewing this Uh via an internet connection You can email us photos in lieu of a physical sample or just give us a call And if we get to see your your photos before before you send us a sample We may be able to help you of course if you want a confirmation for an identification of an insect or a pathogen It's best to send us a sample so we can do that But feel free to contact the lab or you contact jesse oestrander directly at jesse.oestrander at ndsu.edu or myself at alexander.konutzen.to at ndsu.edu And our lab's phone number is 701 231 7854 So in general many plant disorders unfortunately are not caused by a pathogen or an insect But it is extremely useful to rule out a pathogen or an insect problem And just because you do not see insects, it doesn't mean that they they weren't present there in the past Um, and of course some insects and some arthropods including mites can be too small to see with the naked eye Now often if the cause is environmental trained personnel can only make the best guess So if you have a imbalance in your your soil chemistry chemistry We may be able to tell but we won't be able to tell for certain And so for that reason the soil testing lab on campus is never a bad idea In wet paper towels And if you remove soil from the roots you can save money on shipping and it may improve the sample quality Now samples should be double bagged and ziploc bags but left open to breathe Otherwise the plants will start to rock And place them in a sturdy shipping box Seal all the seams with tape And mail as early as possible in the week So that way if it gets here and you send it usps And it gets to campus distribution center on tuesday and it sits for a couple days We can hopefully still get it by friday. Otherwise it may sit over the weekend And if it sits It might degrade the quality of your sample But if you have any questions on sending us a sample or anything at all don't hesitate to give us a call We'll be more than happy to help you Lastly there is a submission form and it's available online, but it's not required You can visit our web page to find the link You know you should fill out the basic information. It's a fillable PDF And you know like contact address So we can get you a report if need be or we can tell you what your your issues are And just write a story or explain your concerns on the reverse side Don't worry about filling every section of the form There are a lot but it's it's designed that way to be a broad form That will allow many different people with many different problems to utilize it And obviously this is really important. Do not put the form in the bag with the sample Uh, we ask this because plants Exude moisture and if you leave your form in the bag Your form is going to get wet and if it's in pen or marker We might not be able to read what your problem is Now the form is available online So here is our website at at www.ag.ndsu.edu slash pdl And you can find the here's our website and you can find the link under submit a sample Now when you click this link you'll find this form Which uh is what I was just referring to so make sure you fill out who is submitting the the sample And uh who you want the results to go to and of course the plant Now we have three addresses So if you have the opportunity the easiest way is to walk in And we are located in 206 Waldron Hall on NDSU's campus However, we'll also take samples in the mail We have a usps address that delivers the campus distribution And a shipping address that delivers to the plant pathology departmental office So here are different locations again and our mailing address for usps is NDSU Plant Diagnostic Lab, NDSU department 76 uh 60 PO box 6050 Bargo North Dakota 58108 6050 and our FedEx UPS address Is NDSU Plant Diagnostic Lab 306 Waldron Hall Bargo North Dakota 58102 And there's our telephone number again Do you have any questions? Yeah, Alex Well, I think you just answered somebody had a question about is it all right? Can I just drop off the samples to you? Absolutely. We'll be more than happy to take any samples Uh, uh that you just drop off. Also the submission form is not necessarily required As long as you just sell us who it's for and what it is We'll be able to fill that information out for the for ourselves With that so if someone has a sample they want to submit but you think it should be in a separate envelope or package so People should send the submission form separately They can include it in the package Um, they can they can either email it to us and give us kind of a heads up that a sample is coming our way They can also submit include it in the package itself, but just don't include it in the bag So you can include it outside of the bag Or the easiest way the most convenient way is to use a ziploc bag Place the form inside there that way you're you can ensure that it won't get wet at all even if Packaged drowns And about how many samples do you get a year? We roughly get around 4 000 samples every year and about About a third of those or so are horticultural Samples and the rest are broken up into either agronomic or into seed health testing And do you find that most of your work is done? Through digital cameras and email or most of it's actually in the lab Most of our work is actually traditionally done in the lab people bring us samples and then we determine what their diagnoses are However, it's the digital media has improved and we have been receiving more submissions and requests of just digital material Like photographs of different people's trees or gardens And I especially have received many different requests from insect identifications online Of course, um, sometimes we're able to help or a lot of times we are but uh, Usually if you need absolute confirmation a physical sample may be required Okay, uh Are you ready? Are you ready for spring because I had a couple questions Usually I I got some uh, I got to click my brain on you know this time of year Yes, so let them go out and go too much as in these specific situations But since there's no other questions and we got a few minutes here Somebody has an issue with down downy mildew on their peonies Do you have any recommendations for handling that? um And this is where I was a little nervous about the talk. So I am an entomological Dying physician. So I'm an entomologist and my training is mostly related to insect. So, um, But if you have downy mildew, um, it's it's best to find the right type of fungicide that will actually act and control So I think uh, I'll just maybe I'll just help you out a little bit here for what it's worth Uh, if you got fungal diseases on your peonies First thing you can do this spring do a really good job cleaning up the garden Or we should have done that last fall to get any of that disease tissue out of your planting You want to keep to minimize fungal problems. You want to keep the leaves dry when you water so Water in the morning if you can and target the water at the base So the leaves are as dry as possible Uh, maybe the planting is getting a little congested. You know, maybe this up kind of late august september We want to divide our peonies and open them up Um, usually for fungal spray is the best way to deal with that is preventatives So like you can get fungal diseases on peonies when the stems are just six eight inches out of the ground So a preventative spray of a fungicide at that time Can help uh prevent the problem So you do that and we're well on our way How about an entomology question? I got a couple here Back to the midges midges on engelman ivy And it strips the plants by the end of the year. They come back the next year, but it's ugly to look at each fall okay, so Uh, if you have gall forming midges, uh one thing to keep in mind is most gall forming insects Uh, they're uh They have a very brief window of actual control So if you're waiting to control and you don't monitor your your plants You're going to have midges that'll come in they'll make galls and then they'll be protected by the plant tissue So no method of control will really Get rid of those while they've got themselves, uh put in place Uh, one thing you can do is Uh applications of essential oils or insecticides before They're there You just need to make sure that the timing is is right on par with their activity So if you wait and it has a short Half life and you spray A week or so before the activity happens and if the fungicide or i mean if the insecticide Washes away or wears away then you won't have any effect Another thing you can do is cultural control and what that is is you can remove the the affected plant material and It especially at the end of the year in the fall if you get rid of some of the vegetation that has some of the insect damage on it Some of that will actually harbor insects for the next year So if you use that for mulch it might be a good idea to dispose of it It's far away from your plants Okay, maybe just one other question. Just to test your master level expertise now Congratulations on that. Thank you. How about a flea beetles? Any tips on controlling them? flea beetles flea beetles are They can be quite problematic and it really depends on what plant you're working with but uh flea beetles you can if you monitor and Watch their numbers if you get a more they're they're a few of them on the plants Early on and you can control them then you can prevent further compounding problems later And that's really the big the big key is a lot of entomological problems You need to monitor them and start them You know nip them in the bud You want to try to take care of them right away because if you let them wait and put up Then you're going to have bigger compounding problems that might hurt you later on in the season That's a you know, that's a great point Alex and uh get you know Get spend time in your garden And so that when you see like those first shot holes appearing on your young plants You can go attack those flea beetles and save your plant And that reminds me somebody once told me what's the best treatment for your garden? What's the best thing you can give your garden? And you know what it is time time time and energy Shadow your shadow is the best thing you can give your garden. That's what native americans Well, they like your footprint. That's another thing because that's when you're out there Spending time with your plants like you say the time and going after any problems that your plants may have Does anybody else have while you pass that master's level question? I think you're well underway for your phd anytime now How about does anybody else have any questions on the services of lab? So just you know, just to summarize it. There's information submission sheets online There's you can use digital media help Services are free in most cases train personnel experts from nDSU Now there to help you What a great service you guys offer and uh and take advantage of that as well as take advantage of your local county extension agent That's a local expert there That uh have amazing levels of knowledge as well that they can share with you So I see no other questions. So else out of this. Thank you for your talk today. We really enjoyed it and uh How about everybody will take a five-minute break before we'll start talking about some Research on high value crops. There you go