Dr. Michael Mazourek from the School of Integrated Plant Science at Cornell University will present the talk, Downy Mildew Resistance from Slicers to Picklers.

Cornell has developed slicing cucumbers with downy mildew resistance for organic growers and released them through a rapid response approach that puts step-wise improvements in grower fields. Following concerns about fungicide cost, efficacy and the availability of pickling cucumbers with real resistance to downy mildew by conventional cucumber growers, we transferred this resistance to pickling cucumbers. We are
refining these selections for organic, conventional, hand and machine harvest through another approach we utilize in organic systems, participatory plant breeding, that puts growers in control of the new varieties that we breed for them.