CucCAP Disease Management Team

The Disease Management Team contributions to the CucCAP project include English and Spanish factsheets about cucurbit crop and disease management strategies including images of disease symptoms for crop producers, articles about cucurbit plant pathology, and articles about the team’s research efforts and accomplishments.

Five Fusarium wilt management strategies

cuccap CucCAP Disease Management Team, Cucurbit Crop & Disease Management

Management of Fusarium wilt of watermelon is one of the best examples of IPM.
Five practices can be used. Grafting is a stand-alone practice. It’s so effective that it’s not necessary to combine it with any other technique. The other four practices work best when combined. Cover cropping with vetch reduces the amount of Fusarium spores in soil. Delaying transplanting as long as possible. Soil temperatures above 78 to 81°F at 2- to 4-inch depths reduce the number of diseased plants. Choosing cultivars with resistance helps reduce the number of diseased plants in soils infested with Fusarium. The fifth technique is conventional fungicides.

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Early Career Scientist Spotlight | Usha Bhatta

cuccap CucCAP Disease Management Team

Usha Bhatta is a Post Doctoral Research Scientist working with CucCAP Plant Pathologist Dr. Lina Quesada-Ocampo in the Vegetable Pathology Lab at North Carolina State University, Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology and the NC Plant Sciences Initiative. Usha’s hometown is Mahendranagar, Nepal and she focus of her work in the Quasada-Ocampo lab is Plant pathology, genomics, integrated disease management.

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