PotatoLink Disease Webinar Series No 1: Menaces in potato soil - the common scab story

Details: Research scientist, Dr Tonya Wiechel, will provide an overview of a 10-year integrated disease management program showcasing the team’s investigations into common scab.

The research focused on investigating management strategies including plant nutrition and fungicides.

This research was conducted as part of a national program APRP1 (PT04016) & 2 (PT09026): Potato Processor R&D Program with funding from Agriculture Victoria and Hort Innovation.

Presenter: Dr Wiechel is a plant pathologist with Agriculture Victoria based at AgriBio and has extensive experience in researching soilborne diseases of potatoes.

She has achievements in progressing research in the areas of:

understanding the biology of powdery and common scab, Rhizoctonia disease and Verticillium wilt of potato

validation of soil DNA diagnostic tests for soilborne pathogens of potato

development of in vitro bioassays to study pathogen biology

identification of novel treatments to manage plant disease.

Dr Wiechel has successfully co-supervised to completion two PhD students working on potato early dying syndrome in Australia, and two Masters students - one who researched plant immunity against powdery scab root infection, and another who investigated common scab suppressive soil using DNA sequencing.