damaging plant disease
Scientists at North
Carolina State University have launched an all-out assault against
a plant disease that has become increasingly destructive in recent years.
The university will use
$175,000 made available from the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund through
the North Carolina Tobacco Research Commission to fund a range of efforts
designed to help farmers fight the tomato spotted wilt virus. The virus
did an estimated $44.4 million worth of damage to the state’s flue-cured
tobacco crop alone in 2002. The disease also attacks other crops.
North
Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Meg Scott Phipps accepted the
$175,000 grant from Billy Carter, North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund
chairman, on behalf of the North Carolina Tobacco Research Commission
during the university’s annual Tobacco Day, Wednesday, Jan. 8,
at N.C. State. As agriculture commissioner, Phipps chairs the Tobacco
Research Commission.
The Tobacco Trust Fund is
one of three programs set up in North Carolina to make use of funding
from the tobacco settlement, an agreement between tobacco companies
and 46 states under which the companies will pay the states approximately
$206 billion over 25 years. The trust fund provides grants for efforts
to help tobacco growers and others involved in tobacco-related businesses.
The North Carolina Tobacco
Research Commission was created by tobacco growers to fund tobacco research
and North Carolina Cooperative Extension
tobacco programs. The commission collects 10 cents from growers for
every 100 pounds of tobacco sold by North Carolina flue-cured and burley
tobacco growers.
The trust fund agreed to
provide $175,000 for research and extension efforts aimed at controlling
tomato spotted wilt virus, said Dr. Bill Collins, coordinator of tobacco
programs in the College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences at N.C. State. Collins added that the research
commission then selected the research and extension programs that will
receive funding.
Tomato spotted wilt virus
has increasingly become a problem for tobacco growers and other farmers
in recent years, said Dr. Tom Melton, Philip Morris professor and department
leader for the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service in the Department
of Plant Pathology at N.C. State.
Melton said the virus destroyed
6.4 percent of the state’s flue-cured tobacco crop in 2002. The
loss was the worst ever from a disease. The virus also attacks tomatoes,
peppers, peanuts and potatoes, along with a number of other plants.
Melton said the disease
overwinters each year in weeds, then is spread to tobacco and other
crops by insects called thrips. He added that the incidence of the disease
has increased in recent years, and scientists believe it will continue
to increase unless ways to manage it are found.
The virus is particularly
difficult to deal with, Melton added, because it changes frequently
and appears as a number of different strains. There are no pesticides
to control it. Melton said only a chemical called Actigard is known
to help protect plants from the virus.
Actigard is a new type of
pesticide known as a plant activator. It stimulates or turns on a disease
resistance mechanism in the plant. Actigard has been shown to work well
to help protect tobacco from tomato spotted wilt virus but is toxic
to some other crops, Melton said.
The $175,000 grant will
fund six projects. Melton will be involved in an effort to determine
how best to use Actigard to help protect tobacco. At the same time,
a plant breeder at N.C. State will work to breed into tobacco varieties
suited to North Carolina resistance to the virus found in a tobacco
variety from Poland.
Four other projects will
focus on various aspects of the biology of the virus. Melton said that
from this range of research scientists hope to develop measures growers
of tobacco and other crops may use to protect their crops from the virus.
—Dave
Caldwell
