Early Blight & Brown Spot of potatoes - symptoms, epidemiology & management

Jacquie van der Waals, Associate Professor - Dept of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Pretoria South Africa.

“Early in 2000, I established the Potato Pathology Programme at the University of Pretoria, which is one of the flagship research programmes funded by PSA. My main research focus is the epidemiology, diagnosis and control of soil- and seed-borne diseases of potatoes, with the main focus being understanding these pathogens and epidemiology of the diseases in order to improve management in the field. In order to do this, various techniques are combined to better understand disease spread and development in the field, interaction of host and pathogen, and ultimately use this information to provide growers with a risk assessment for the disease under consideration.

I have been involved in many national and international research groups, including the International Potato Diagnostics Collaboration (2008-2011), which comprised a group of scientists from Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and South Africa. From 2011 - 2013, I was a co-investigator in a collaborative climate change project between different departments at UP and Wageningen University & Research Centre, The Netherlands.

In 2014, I hosted the 4th International Powdery Scab Workshop in Pretoria, which facilitated sharing of results and constructive discussions on future research and new partnerships. I was a keynote speaker at the European Association of Potato Research Pathology and Pests conference in August 2016 in Dundee, Scotland. I was invited to speak at the Potato Association of America meeting in 2018, the ICPP 2018 conference in Boston, and the Southern African Society of Plant Pathology conference in 2019.

My passion is the transfer of knowledge and research results to others.”