Third Candidate for the Extension Plant Pathologist faculty position

MEGAN DEWDNEY
Dept. of Plant Pathology, NYSAES, Cornell University, Geneva

Seminar title: “Research Towards Practical Tree Fruit Disease Management”

Time: 10:45 Donuts, orange juice and coffee will be served
11:00 Seminar begins

Date: Wednesday July 11, 2007

Place: BHG Teaching lab

Short bio: Ph.D. Expected mid-2007;
Major: Plant Pathology
Minors: Plant Disease Epidemiology and Microbiology
Cornell University, Geneva Expt. Station
Advisor: Herb S. Aldwinckle
M.Sc. 2000; Major: Plant Pathology
McGill University
B.Sc. Agr. (Honors) 1996; Major: Plant Science
University of British Columbia

Megan Dewdney’s research program at Geneva involves elucidating the effects of variables including blossom age, apple cultivar and temperature on the epiphytic populations of the fireblight pathogen, Erwinia amylovora on blossoms. She compared predictions of these populations for the two major fireblight disease forecasting models: MARYBLYT and Cougarblight. She investigated the proportion of naturally infested blossoms in relation to the population estimates predicted by the program MARYBLYT. She also evaluated blossom age of several apple cultivars to determine it’s influence on epiphytic populations of E. amylovora on the stigma surface in blossoms. In this research, she discovered an important interaction of cool temperatures on the epiphytic population dynamics.