Last fall, strawberry fields in the Tampa Bay region and at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) were riddled by colletotrichum crown rot disease, which was spread by winds and rain from Hurricane Milton.

The Category 3 storm – with winds of up to 120 mph and torrential rain -- struck Oct. 9, right about when scientists and growers were starting to plant strawberries. But because of the plant diagnostic clinic at GCREC, growers received rapid, precise diagnoses of the disease and acted quickly to control it. Now, as another hurricane season nears, farmers know the storms can bring diseases to all sorts of crops, which serve as the sources for much of the food we eat. The good news for growers is they can find out what’s ailing their crop from any UF/IFAS plant diagnostic clinic around Florida. Labs are at the North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy, the UF main campus in Gainesville, the Mid-Florida Research and Education Center in Apopka, the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center (GCREC) in Balm, the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center in Immokalee and the Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead.

Just like with people and animals, diagnosing plant and crop diseases quickly and accurately is the key to finding ways to keep them under control.

It used to take up to a week to diagnose most of these diseases in a petri dish. Now, particularly with strawberries, scientists use plant DNA to specify diseases within 24 to 48 hours.

“When growers had to wait five to seven days for a traditional diagnosis, they would go ahead and treat it anyway,” said Natalia Peres, a plant pathology professor at GCREC. “They would use their best guess. That’s because you don’t want to watch your crop collapse.”

A few years ago, scientists at GCREC developed protocols to make faster diagnoses. Still, they did not have the equipment to perform the test. They asked the Florida Strawberry Growers Association (FSGA) for the technology, and FSGA came through, Peres said.

“Whenever the strawberry industry is challenged by a severe outbreak of diseases, faster diagnoses at the clinic allow the growers to make timely applications of the most effective crop protection materials,” said Kenneth Parker, executive director of the strawberry growers’ group.

Some diseases can look almost exactly alike. It takes DNA testing and trained eyes to properly diagnose them.

“You have to know what is in there to know how to treat it,” said Marcus Marin, who runs the plant diagnostic clinic at GCREC. “They need to have the right diagnoses.”

Peres went one step further.

“With rapid diagnosis, we can recommend what medicine to use. It helps you to know what to do for control. You use a specific fungicide, depending on what it is,” she said. “They don’t have to waste a treatment that might not work.”

Added Marin: “This not only protects the environment but also reduces production costs and leads to healthier produce for consumers.”

We have crown rot diseases every season,” Peres said. “But we had more of that particular crown rot this past season.”

The fungus that causes the disease hides in native vegetation around strawberry fields, then moves with the rain and winds of tropical storms and hurricanes and can kill strawberry plants.

Strawberries are hardly the only crop that can be damaged by diseases spread by hurricanes or tropical storms in Florida.

For example, models showed how soybean rust likely moved during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

“In this case and several other newly emerging diseases, timely and accurate diagnosis are conducted by plant pathologists based in the plant diagnostic labs of UF/IFAS,” said Mathews Paret, chair of the UF/IFAS plant pathology department. “Providing the most appropriate management recommendations for stakeholders based on research conducted at the University of Florida and collaborating institutions has been central to the effective dissemination of information to Florida stakeholders and effective disease management.”