We had a pretty eventful past couple of weeks. Dr. Palmateer and Tara Tarnowski traveled to Puerto Rico to meet with Dr. Consuelo Estevez de Jensen , director of the University of Puerto Rico Plant Diagnostic Clinic, which is located in Juana Diaz. We are currently collaborating on a project to investigate more sensitive PCR methods for molecular diagnostics. We spent a day at the experiment station in Juana Diaz, trying out a new PCR method. We also travelled to Mayaguez to visit the Plant Pathology department at the Mayaguez Department, and visited with Dr. Brian Irish at the USDA-ARS station. He showed us their extensive collection of cacao germplasm, as well as many other neat tropical plants they have at the station. See photos to the left of the University of Puerto Rico experiment station in Juana Diaz, Dr. Estevez de Jensen in the USDA cacao collection, the biggest baobob tree on the island (also at the USDA station), and Dr. Palmateer appreciating one of the many breathtaking views on the island.
On October 13th, a group of agricultural scientists from Germany visited TREC. We showed them around the clinic and our tropical fruit collections. They then toured several local nurseries. The whole group seemed to enjoy seeing all the tropical fruit and foliage crops we have here in south Florida.
Finally, on October 20th, the latest group of Master Gardeners from right here in Miami-Dade county came through for a tour. The were enthusiastic about everything we showed them, and asked all sorts of questions. We had fun looking at several disease samples together and testing their diagnostic skills. All of them did a pretty good job of distinguishing between symptoms and signs, and were really excited to see vascular discoloration, bacterial streaming, and several photos of fungal spores taken from the samples we were looking at. What a fun group!
