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Network News |
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March 31, 2005 |
Volume 2, Number 3 |
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Asian Soybean Rust: Training for Diagnosticians
NPDN diagnosticians will have a teleconference to discuss ID of Phakopsora pachyrhizi by morphological characteristics on April 5th, 2005. All regions will have an opportunity to call into this teleconference during the day. For more information, contact Carrie Harmon at clharmon@ufl.edu. Southern Plant
Diagnostic Network 1453 Fifield
Hall Phone: (352) 392-3631 ext
254 Fax: (352)
392-6532 E-mail: We’re on the
Web! Southern Plant Diagnostic Network (SPDN) All Rights Reserved
Editor: Carrie L. Harmon
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Online
Offerings New Please remember to submit your 05-06 budget this month! Template forms are available at http://spdn.ifas.ufl.edu/funding_opportunities.htm Call Carrie Harmon with any questions at 352-392-3631 xt 254. New More updates at the Asian soybean rust page, including news about the Florida finds, and the false alarm in Louisiana. New The March edition of the Southern Region Integrated Pest Management Center Newsletter “Southern Exposure” is now available for viewing on the web at: http://www.sripmc.org/newsalerts/newsletter/March05.pdf PDIS Demonstration and Workshop New The University of Florida held a 2-day workshop, March 28-29, to demonstrate the PDIS system as an alternative system for any SPDN states to use to track sample data, billing, and more. Notes and a PowerPoint presentation with notes are available at http://spdn.ifas.ufl.edu/Diagnostics.html. Pest and Pathogen News Contributed by Tim Momol, Amanda Hodges New NPDN (and other) diagnosticians will have a teleconference to discuss ID of Phakopsora pachyrhizi by morphological characteristics on April 5th, 2005. All regions will have an opportunity to call into this teleconference during the day. For more information, contact Carrie Harmon at clharmon@ufl.edu.
Who can ID Soybean Rust? The APHIS State/Federal Responsibilities for ID are here (PDF) New First Report of Stripe Rust caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici on Wheat in Florida. Link to the PDF.Update Whorl Maggots in Rice: The unknown Hydrelia sp. that was recently discovered by LSU AgCenter entomologists in Louisiana rice fields was tentatively identified as Hydrellia wirthi Korytkowski by Dr. Wayne Mathis of the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History. Submission of an officially ESA approved common name for this insect is currently in progress. Subsequent to the discovery of the unknown Hydrelia sp. in Louisiana, similar damage and specimens were collected in Texas. The Louisiana and Texas specimens were found to be conspecific with specimens from Peru and Costa Rica. Final confirmation of the species-level identification is pending examination of the original holotype or paratypes. For more information on the effect of this insect on rice see (PDF). Also, you may contact Dr. Boris Castro, LSU, bcastro@agctr.lsu.edu for more information.
New Scale in Florida: Dr. Forrest (Bill) Howard, University of Florida, Ft. Lauderdale Research and Education Center (FLREC), recently alerted the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry (FDACS-DPI) about unusually high populations of false armored scales (Hemiptera: Conchaspididae) on West Indian mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni Jacq.) at the FLREC. The specimen was identified as Conchaspis cordiae Mamet by Dr. Greg Hodges, FDACS-DPI and confirmed by Dr. Douglass Miller, USDA, Systematic Entomology Lab. Further examination of the FDACS-DPI collection revealed that this specimen was first collected in the continental U.S. on November 26, 2003, and was misidentified as a closely-related species that currently occurs in Florida, Conchaspis anagracei Cockerell. Further information on this new U.S. continental record will soon be available on the FDACS-DPI pest alert page at: http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/pi-pest-alert.html or contact Dr. Greg Hodges hodgesg@doacs.state.fl.us .
Exotic Armored Scale News: Dr. Greg Hodges, Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry (FDACS-DPI), reports an increase in samples of the white mango scale, Aulacaspis tubercularis, and longan scale, Thysanofiorinia nephelii, on tropical fruit in Florida. Both species are exotic, invasive armored scales that currently occur in Florida. A pest alert is available on the mango scale at: http://www.doacs.state.fl.us/pi/enpp/pi-pest-alert.html. For more information, contact Dr. Hodges at: hodgesg@doacs.state.fl.us .
NPDN Symposium at National ESA Meeting 2005: At the November 6-9, 2005 Entomological Society of America meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, a symposium focusing on the National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN) and issues specific to entomology will occur. The symposium is entitled ‘The Role of the National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN) and Land Grant University Cooperative Extension Services in Promoting the Early Detection of Exotic Pests’ and is co-organized by Drs. Susan Ratcliffe (University of Illinois, North Central IPM Center), Steve Toth (North Carolina State University, Southern Region IPM Center), Kenneth Sorensen (North Carolina State University), and Amanda Hodges (Southern Plant Diagnostic Network, University of Florida). More information on the ESA annual meeting is available at: http://www.entsoc.org/ . Please consider attending the NPDN symposia at next year’s ESA annual meeting.
Notes of Interest to Insect Taxonomists: A new project called Wikispecies is hoping to document all types of living creatures http://species.wikipedia.org/. This project was mentioned in the February 18, 2005 issue of Science (Vol. 307, pg. 1021). Visit: www.sciencemag.org . Other articles of interest to taxonomists in this issue of Science include an article about the Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL)’s vision for providing DNA bar codes for all living organisms (pg. 1037) and Sweden’s plans to complete an inventory of all of their living species (pg. 1038). Training and Education News Contributed by Amanda Hodges
Online Updates In order to assist training session organizers and participants, several changes have been made to the NPDN training & education website. All future and past First Detector training sessions that have occurred since the development of online training session and participant registration are currently available at: http://spdn.ifas.ufl.edu/Forms/ReadRegistSessions.jsp . Participant information should be entered in at this website, next to the appropriate session. Training session organizers are responsible for ensuring that their participant information is entered correctly. The training and participant registration form are still relatively new systems, so please let us know if you are having any problems. For questions or concerns, please contact Amanda Hodges achodges@ifas.ufl.edu .
NEW You may now directly e-mail session organizers with questions from the training session website at: http://spdn.ifas.ufl.edu/Forms/ReadRegistSessions.jsp Look for the "e-mail the organizer" column. NEW Are you a session organizer that would like to receive an e-mail list of the participants in your session? Click here: http://spdn.ifas.ufl.edu/Forms/sessionInfo.html . NEW Are you a session organizer that would like to update/delete participants from your session? Click here: http://spdn.ifas.ufl.edu/Forms/deletionKeyInfo.html Both of these pages require that you enter your session information into the webpage, and both can be linked to from the NPDN training & education page. Note: this page should only be used for session organizers. An e-mail will automatically be sent to the session organizer with the participant list, upon submission of this request.
Upcoming First Detector Trainings
Note: First Detector planning to attend these trainings should register in advance for this sessions on the NPDN educational modules page at: http://spdn.ifas.ufl.edu/Forms/ReadRegistSessions.jsp . For questions about content of individual sessions, please contact your session organizer.
National Events The NPDN will host a First Detector Educator training at the National Association of County Agriculture Agents Meeting in Buffalo, NY on Thursday, July 21, 2005 from Noon to 4 PM (PDF of flyer). For more information, contact session organizer, Mary McKellar at mem40@cornell.edu .
SPDN Events Paul Vincelli, University of Kentucky, will be giving a public relations presentation relating to the NPDN/SPDN in Lexington, KY on April 14, 2005.
Joseph Krausz, Texas A&M University, will be giving a public relations presentation in Corpus Christi, TX at the joint meeting of SAAESD/ASRED on April 4, 2005.
First Detector training in conjunction with Florida State Agricultural Response Team (SART) program will be conducted in Belle, Glade, FL on April 21, and in Tallahassee, FL, on May 19. In addition to registering for the session on the NPDN training & education website, you should visit the SART website at: http://www.flsart.org/ . More information specific to other events at the SART training is available at: http://www.flsart.org/calendar/sarttraining.htm . The overall SART meeting has a registration at this site, and registration is free. |
