When disease organisms become resistant to a fungicide, spraying is like hitting them with rainwater—expensive rainwater. In the last three years, Georgia and South Carolina peach growers have saved money from what would have been wasted sprays and lost fruit caused by fungicide-resistant brown rot—thanks to a Profile kit developed by plant pathologists Dr. Guido Schnabel at South Carolina’s Clemson University and Dr. Phil Brannen at the University of Georgia in Athens. The test should work equally well for any pathogen that sporulates, grows on artificial medium, and develops early in the season, Schnabel said. Among them would be gray […]