Glenda Pereira: 00:06
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Dr. Glenda Pereira, an assistant professor at the University of Maine and the dairy specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. For today’s episode, we have a pathologist. So the only other pathologist I know is Dr. Dana Hill. Okay. And the only thing I really know about pathology is that it’s a lot of coursework, a lot of certifications, and a lot of titles after your name. So today, our second pathologist on the Maine Farmcast, Dr. Alicyn Smart, Doctor of Plant Medicine.
Glenda Pereira: 00:51
Yes. This is so cool. I don’t know this many cool people.
Alicyn Smart: 00:57
Wow. Thank you for having me. I’m really excited to have this conversation with you. So what is it like to be a plant pathologist?
Glenda Pereira: 01:06
Yeah. Or what even is a pathologist for plants? Yeah. So you did your Doctor of Plant Medicine at the University of Florida. Yes.
Glenda Pereira: 01:17
And what did that entail?
Alicyn Smart: 01:19
It entailed four years of studying plants, how they grow, physiology, soil, also entomology, nematology, acarology, plant pathology, and within that virology, bacteriology, and all of that. And then, basically, it also encompassed pesticides as well.
Glenda Pereira: 01:46
Was this always an area that interested you? Or how did you get into this area of expertise?
Alicyn Smart: 01:54
It is something that’s always interested me. So I actually knew I wanted to get my Doctor of Plant Medicine when I was in high school. I went to an agricultural high school where I majored in plant science. So plants have always been kind of my thing. Yeah.
Alicyn Smart: 02:11
And get me super excited to talk about.
Glenda Pereira: 02:13
Yeah. Well, you mentioned briefly, but so you work with a lot of pathogens. Mhmm. And what’s your favorite one?
Alicyn Smart: 02:22
Fungi. Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 02:24
Because they’re fun guys.
Alicyn Smart: 02:26
Exactly. Yeah. The name gives it right. Yeah. Because I really like using the microscope.
Alicyn Smart: 02:37
I enjoy that part of my job. And I like seeing things that we don’t normally see just walking around and seeing morphological characteristics in a different way.
Glenda Pereira: 02:48
So you’re talking about the different properties between fungi, phytoplasma, bacteria, and viruses. But tell us more about what separates fungi from the others and why it’s maybe really what you’re interested in.
Alicyn Smart: 03:02
So as far as how it relates to my job, most plants will get a fungal disease. And that’s because there’s far more fungal pathogens out there than there are bacteria or viruses. So as far as diversity, it’s very broad.
Glenda Pereira: 03:21
Yeah. And in the animal world, which is where we exist almost always, we tend to deal more with bacteria and viruses. But so with plants, is it that you tend to see mostly fungal? And so probably what your team is seeing for caseload at the lab is all fungal based.
Alicyn Smart: 03:40
The majority of our diagnoses are fungal pathogens. We also left out nematodes. We work with nematodes as well that overlaps with animals.
Glenda Pereira: 03:48
A ton. So you talked about diagnosing. So part or a lot of what encompasses your day to day is helping, you know, assess plant samples, giving a diagnosis, and then potentially writing a report for that client to understand what’s going on with the plant that they submitted. So you’re the director of our plant diagnostic lab here at the University of Maine. And what services do you offer to the clients of Maine and beyond?
Glenda Pereira: 04:16
Want to mention because it’s not just Maine.
Alicyn Smart: 04:19
Right. Yeah. Great point. So yeah, we receive samples from anyone who’s concerned that they think that they might have a plant disease. So that can be a homeowner, a seed company, a farmer.
Alicyn Smart: 04:33
We work with a lot of regulatory officials, so our state Department of Ag, and they send us samples and we go through the diagnostic process, which is basically like if you’re sick and you go to a doctor, they go through similar steps to what we take and basically use a process of elimination to come to a diagnosis. And then once we confirm what the diagnosis is, then we provide management recommendations that generally include cultural practices, preventative practices, pesticide recommendations, whatever it is, we alter it to whatever it is that we’ve diagnosed.
Glenda Pereira: 05:11
And not only are you the director of your plant diagnostic lab, but your lab serves as an accreditation service for the National Plant Diagnostic Network as well.
Alicyn Smart: 05:23
Yeah. So the National Plant Diagnostic Network is charged with having diagnostic labs across the country become accredited by 2027. And so our lab manager spends 50% of her time working with labs across the country to ensure that they become accredited, which is basically ensuring that diagnostic labs are held to a very high standard and that if you go to one lab, you can expect similar results and process than if you went to another lab. You hit on earlier about beyond. And our lab receives about, probably, we receive samples from about 17 different states a year is kind of our average.
Alicyn Smart: 06:12
So some of the differences within labs, we have different specialties. So that kind of dictates why one lab or one person would send a sample to another lab.
Glenda Pereira: 06:22
Yeah. And that’s probably why this is a network you’re in discussion meetings with a lot of your colleagues nationwide. So then, you know, if you’re seeing a trend in an emerging disease or pathogen, you guys can communicate and say, hey, we can test for that, potentially diagnose, give treatment, sample protocol, whatever that might be. So then you’re piggybacking on maximizing your efforts and time because diseases spread very quickly.
Glenda Pereira: 06:52
And so by
Alicyn Smart: 06:53
the wind.
Glenda Pereira: 06:53
Trying to mitigate them is also a big factor in what I’m sure you and your team and others that are in the plant diagnostic space have to deal with on a day to day basis. And like you said, by the wind.
Alicyn Smart: 07:06
Yeah. Yeah. So right before I came over here, I was talking to the diagnostician in Rhode Island. And one of her farmers was having an issue with raspberries. And she was running into kind of some issues with coming to a final diagnosis.
Alicyn Smart: 07:24
And so we chatted about it. Sometimes you just need to talk through something. And so I did that with her to help her. And that’s something that we commonly do. We’ll reach out to individuals to help us because, I mean, my lab receives, we’ve received pine trees, turf grass, spinach. You know, we get the gamut of crops.
Alicyn Smart: 07:49
And so you need to know all the pathogens on each of those.
Glenda Pereira: 07:52
And I’m curious. Environment plays a really big factor in the way that that crop or that plant species is managed. But it’s impossible to know every single location where that plant was located. So how do you factor that into your diagnosis? And this is just purely me being curious because something that within our world, we always tend to want to talk with a farmer and say, hey, you know, give me a general basis on what’s going on at your farm.
Glenda Pereira: 08:24
What’s the management like? So then we can make an appropriate recommendation.
Alicyn Smart: 08:27
Right.
Glenda Pereira: 08:28
But that’s not always the case in your setting.
Alicyn Smart: 08:31
So because pathogens kind of ebb and flow with the environment, like this past year was really dry. So our sample load was probably lower than the year prior. So we generally receive 600 to 750 physical plant samples being mailed to the lab. So we don’t necessarily get that opportunity to do visits to each of those. So labs, we rely heavily on the individuals providing the information on the submission form, giving us all the background, even just critical information like when was the last pesticide that was applied? Because that could inhibit, and does inhibit, growth for us.
Alicyn Smart: 09:14
And when we make a diagnosis, we’re not just using symptomology, we’re truly growing out the pathogen. And so once we see it, we make the diagnosis. So we rely on accurate and good samples to make a diagnosis.
Glenda Pereira: 09:33
So how do you prepare a sample and how do you submit a sample so that you can have the quickest turnaround time, which is really important because, like we said, we need to have a quick turnaround time for these folks? But the sampling process can prohibit the best outcome. And I’m just curious, and I’m going to leave in the show notes where folks can access all this information on your website and so they know where to go, but just give us the 30,000 foot view of what that looks like.
Alicyn Smart: 10:02
Okay. So I talked about physically sending in a sample to the lab, but I’ll take a step back. You can also submit digital submissions. And so as far as accurate turnaround time that’s fast, you could do that. And we encourage individuals, especially if it’s like a tree, starting there and then going through the process.
Alicyn Smart: 10:23
And if we can’t figure it out just by a photo, then we do ask that they submit a physical sample. But you can go to the website, upload images of the plant. Ideally, you would have one photo of the entire environment and the entire tree, and then closer up images that are not blurry or anything like that so we can zoom in. And then we can do a pretty good job just using symptoms in that way. But certainly, we can’t do it for everything.
Alicyn Smart: 10:53
We need to actually grow something out or do a number of tests. So then sending in a physical sample can sometimes be confusing for individuals because they might see if they have a tree, let’s say, and you have defoliation or discoloration of the leaves, they might think that it’s a foliar issue. But really, it’s a root issue, perhaps. And so we would actually need the roots to culture out whatever was there causing the disease that showed up in the crown. So we really want as much tissue as possible from all the different parts of the plant.
Alicyn Smart: 11:31
And then if there’s a plant like tomato seedlings, just sending us the entire tomato seedlings or a few of them can help us come to a better diagnosis and then helping them.
Glenda Pereira: 11:42
That is so cool. I did not know that. Roots versus an actual, you know, maybe the tree trunk or even a leaf that can really hone in on what you’re looking at. What’s the trend in Maine? Is there a very common disease that folks get impacted by year to year?
Glenda Pereira: 12:02
I know, for example, this year with the drought, it was a whole different playing field and you saw a decrease in cases just because of the fact that not all the pathogens thrive in a very dry environment. But this summer was an exception, certainly.
Alicyn Smart: 12:20
Yeah. And I think also, you know, thinking about the individuals that send samples in, sometimes they’re creating special environments. So although it was a dry year, we did get some fungal organisms that like moist, humid environments because it was really humid too this year. And so individual farmers that have overhead irrigation, they were experiencing probably more diseases because it was so humid coupled with the overhead irrigation. And then also there’s the hoop houses that a lot of growers have now.
Alicyn Smart: 12:58
So as far as the diversity of the way plants are grown, that is certainly affected by the environment and all of those different things. But I’ve been surprised a few times this year. I’ve been doing this for eight years. And this year, I think I’ve had more unknowns that I haven’t been able to figure out than any other year. And I can’t say exactly why.
Alicyn Smart: 13:28
And I think that probably they aren’t pathogens, that they’re more cultural. And we are seeing a lot of stresses more. So I’m chalking it up to that for me as a diagnostician, right? Like the part of my job that I really love is not knowing, doing more tests and then more tests and then more tests and trying to figure it out, narrowing down the list of what it could potentially be. But now we have technology that we can, just for those challenging ones that we’ve had, sequence the DNA or RNA to figure out what was in that sample.
Alicyn Smart: 14:03
And then we get everything that pops up. So it’s almost like we have so much technology and sometimes we can’t make sense of it.
Glenda Pereira: 14:12
And that’s part of our evolutionary process as scientists is the goal isn’t to figure out all the solutions. The only thing I’ve learned in this career is that I know less now than I thought I did when I started. Because we’re just always learning.
Alicyn Smart: 14:30
Yeah. And refining. I mean, I will not forget the ones that I haven’t figured out. I mean, there’s a lettuce sample from like four years ago I still think about because I never figured it out.
Alicyn Smart: 14:40
You said something else that jogged my memory. I’m talking about trees a lot, but I work with a lot of other plants. But I guess I’m talking about trees right now because that’s what I currently have in the lab since it’s wintertime. But trees in particular are challenging because the drought that we had this summer, I might not see the symptoms on a tree for two or three years. And so I need to remember in 2025, we had a drought.
Alicyn Smart: 15:10
And so
Glenda Pereira: 15:10
You’re saying the long term effects.
Alicyn Smart: 15:12
Yeah. For our perennials, especially trees that are resilient, but when we have severe weather, it compounds and then they’re more apt to get pathogens and insect damage and it all kind of culminates. And it’s really hard to know what the primary cause of a symptom is at that point, right?
Alicyn Smart: 15:34
Because it’s probably like five different things playing into it.
Glenda Pereira: 15:37
Yeah. So I wanted to circle back to something. So your lab can obviously provide a lot of diagnoses, but your team is building a program right now that should be released soon. And so can you tell us more about that program that you have currently?
Alicyn Smart: 15:58
Yeah. So this is a six hour micro credential plant disease diagnostic course. And it basically enables individuals to understand the diagnostic process, tools that they can use to go through that process themselves, and basically make them equipped to know what to do when they see an issue. And they might not be able to make a final diagnosis. And so we go into how you would send a good sample to us.
Alicyn Smart: 16:30
But we do cover more of the common pathogens that we get in the lab and a lot of really great resources. When creating it, I wanted to make it broad enough that a really avid gardener would be interested in it. But also, I could see a greenhouse company making sure that everyone on their team has gone through that training, and farmers as well who want to maybe increase their knowledge in that area because they’ve struggled in the past or they’re just starting to grow and they realize you can have a lot of financial stress and loss due to plant diseases. And I think sometimes folks will respond too late rather than realizing early on that they can actually do something if they catch it and they have the eye and are scouting for those symptoms early on. So my hope is that we can get a broad audience and hopefully just empower them to feel confident enough to make their own diagnosis themselves.
Glenda Pereira: 17:34
And you said scouting. Yeah. So another thing that’s really critical is records. And, you know, just generalizing here, but not everybody has good records. But you said what makes a really good sample case for you is to have all of that data so you can really sort of identify, yeah, I think it’s down this path because of everything you’ve given me for information. But having good records and jotting down, you know, what was the weather that day, what was precipitation, etcetera.
Glenda Pereira: 18:06
Those things can be really helpful so that you can have a better outcome and diagnosis in the end. So maybe you probably cover some of this in your micro credential course. But it just came to mind as you had mentioned that.
Alicyn Smart: 18:22
Yeah. And even just information like, oh, this variety that I grew this year did really well in my area. And so I need to be thinking about selecting that variety again. And that might be because it has tolerance or resistance to a certain disease that we have here in the state. Or it could just be the type of microclimate you have in a particular area.
Alicyn Smart: 18:48
And then also just keeping note of where you grew things so that you can have some crop rotation to help reduce the amount of inoculum or pests in general in a certain area. I, for one, can’t remember where I put my tomatoes two years ago in my garden.
Glenda Pereira: 19:07
Can you elaborate on that a little bit more, just because breaking the cycle is what we’re talking about? Yeah. And this is really critical as probably a management tool. Trees are more complicated to move.
Glenda Pereira: 19:18
Right? You can’t just be like, all right, I’m going to replant this entire orchard over there. But a garden is a perfect example. Or even if you’re growing a crop that’s not a perennial, you can maybe rest and disturb that environment so that whatever pathogen is living there doesn’t have that host the following season.
Alicyn Smart: 19:39
It’ll also just expand that to host family. So where you have your potatoes, you don’t necessarily want your tomatoes being there next year because they’re really closely related and they also overlap in pathogens. Same is true for your onion and your garlic and your chives. You don’t want them all in the same area. So diversifying distances between them in one growing area, but then also changing it up that following year, like you said, so that you have either resting that area or just putting another crop that’s very different in that area.
Alicyn Smart: 20:16
So I also mentioned resistance. I feel like that’s the first thing that you should think about. Because, for instance, most people in Maine grow tomatoes. And everyone in Maine has early blight spores just kind of blowing around. And we know we have this.
Alicyn Smart: 20:34
We know we’ll have it every year. So selecting for resistant varieties of early blight on your tomato, everyone should be doing that. Because either you won’t have the resistance and you’ll lose your tomatoes from those black spots that probably everyone is aware of, or you will just get a little bit of the disease on the lower portion of the plant. It will never work its way to the crop. And then you can actually have a good harvest.
Alicyn Smart: 21:03
So that’s one thing that everyone can do.
Glenda Pereira: 21:05
Yeah. And prevention, like you mentioned earlier in the episode. So something that you’re covering in your micro credential is, can we be more proactive, which gets on the prevention side of things?
Alicyn Smart: 21:17
And just like best management practices in general, like sanitation. So I can tell you, just transitioning also to gardens, like flower beds. I have a number of peony plants in my landscape and I have this one peony plant that has a virus. I know it has a virus. I think the viral symptoms are quite beautiful.
Alicyn Smart: 21:39
So I keep it and it’s fine. It flowers. You know, I’m not worried about it because I know how to take care of it. And so what I do is when I deadhead my peonies, I deadhead all my healthy ones and that guy always goes last. And then after I use my cutting shears to prune the deadheads, I just wipe my shears with 70% rubbing alcohol and I’m done and I’m not touching any other plants. So, you know, even though some viruses are mechanically spread just by our hands, I’m going inside and moving on to my next task.
Alicyn Smart: 22:14
So having good practices. And a lot of these things, like clearly my tolerance for disease in my own garden is quite high. Everyone has their own level of what I’m comfortable with. So that’s also something I try to, because these reports that we create with these management recommendations are unique to each situation. I do try to provide the science based, like this is what will work, these are the things you have to do.
Alicyn Smart: 22:46
But then there’s also a spectrum of people that want their plants to look a certain way and are willing to do whatever it takes to get them that way. And then there’s the others that just want somewhat green chlorophyll in their yard. And so the whole gamut.
Glenda Pereira: 23:02
So what I’m hearing is that folks would really benefit from this micro credential course to learn the basics and then obviously follow up with you and your team if they are still having issues with a specific pathogen that they just can’t figure out what to do with, and it’s really causing some significant economic impact. Was there anything else we didn’t cover about this that you’d like to share with our listeners?
Alicyn Smart: 23:26
Yeah. So this micro credential accounts for six pesticide credits.
Glenda Pereira: 23:30
Oh, sweet.
Alicyn Smart: 23:31
Yeah. Which is a pretty good chunk. And we were able to get that because it’s interactive and you have to prove that you actually have the knowledge. So hopefully folks enjoy it.
Glenda Pereira: 23:42
Yeah. So thanks so much, Alicyn. This was really insightful. We’re looking forward to having you again back on the Maine Farmcast. Thanks.
Glenda Pereira: 23:51
Have fun. Yeah. And for folks who have future topic suggestions, questions, comments, be sure to email us at extension.farmcast@maine.edu.