U of I Nematode Research

The University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is a huge asset to Idaho farmers and ranchers. For example, one great nemesis to Idaho potato growers is the nematode. Dr. Allen Caplan, a reacher and professor at U of I talked to me about efforts addressing the “nemesis nematode.” So a number of years ago it was recognized that there was an infection of pale cyst nematodes in southern Idaho. Now this is a parasite that normally is not in the United States, but it suddenly appeared. We're still trying to understand how it got there. But fields that were contaminated with that nematode had to be quarantined because the government and all of the commodity agencies did not want that parasite to spread, causing damage to other areas of the country and also preventing the farmers from selling their products outside of their counties. So a number of agencies and this included the Idaho Potato Commission, Northwest Potato Commission, APHIS, USDA, agreed to a plan that Dr. Louise Murray, Dan Doran had set up to try and find ways to create resistant potatoes and also simultaneously find ways to control the current infestations. My part of the research and a part of the research that's being carried out in the University of Idaho covers most of those areas. It's a pretty broad based program. Speaker1: Broad based and very important.