Looking for Red Leaf Disease in Wild Blueberries

I am looking for crop fields with red leaf disease this summer, since one of my graduate students, Nahida Kabir, will be studying red leaf disease starting this summer and continuing in the summers of 2026 and 2027. 

We are looking for fields affected by red leaf disease ( see pictures below) with patches of the disease in at least 5 genets (clones). Her research will involve marking infected genets, patches, and stems with red leaf disease, and then counting and cutting diseased stems at different time intervals. These treatments will be to determine if cutting stems early in the season affect how many stems have this disease later in the season and over the following years.  It will also provide information on how this fungal pathogen spreads in a field. Treatments of cutting red leaf diseased stems and observing the results will occur over three summers: from 2025 to 2027. Since red leaf disease can manifest in patches within a clone, I have included a few images of red leaf below.

Please let me know if you have a field we could use and if you have any questions. We greatly appreciate your assistance with this research.

Thank you!

Seanna  

You can contact me by the Blueberry Hotline 1.800.897.0757 option 3, my office phone 207.581.2621, or by email at sannis@maine.edu.