Mar 22, 2013

Penn State gets new pathologist

A new tree fruit pathologist, Kari Peter, began work in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences on March 1.

With a faculty appointment in the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, she will be stationed at the college’s Fruit Research and Extension Center in Biglerville, Adams County, in the heart of the state’s primary fruit-producing region.

Peter will serve tree fruit growers in Pennsylvania and Maryland through the Mid-Atlantic Fruit Consortium, a collaboration that enables Penn State, the University of Maryland and West Virginia University to share resources and expertise. Results of her applied research will be disseminated through a robust Extension education program, according to Penn State.

“The biggest issue facing fruit growers is managing pathogen resistance to chemical controls,” Peter said. “The pathogens are smarter than we are, and growers have trouble staying one step ahead.”

One of her first priorities will be to develop tools for rapid diagnosis of resistance to allow growers to respond to problems during the growing season, rather than having to make adjustments to disease-management practices over the winter when it’s too late to avoid losses to the previous crop, according to Penn State.

Peter also will address the connections between pre- and postharvest diseases, which affect what happens to apples and other fruit during storage – an area that has not been a recent focus of Penn State’s fruit pathology program.

Peter’s hiring fills a gap in fruit pathology research and Extension caused by faculty retirements and departures, according to Fred Gildow, head of the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology.

Peter comes to Penn State after two years in the Food Quality Laboratory at USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md. As a research associate, she studied postharvest fungal diseases of apples and mechanisms associated with their biocontrol.

From 2008 to 2010, she was a postdoctoral fellow in plant pathology at Penn State, where she researched transmission of plant viruses by aphids and the mechanisms for vector specificity.

Peter earned her bachelor’s degree in entomology and plant pathology at the University of Delaware, and her master’s degree and doctorate in plant pathology from Cornell University. Her doctoral research focused on potato leafroll virus, according to Penn State.