Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Demand for organic tomatoes continues to grow, yet farmers struggle to keep up due to foliar diseases that can move quickly through farm fields and decimate entire crops. The tomato organic management and improvement project (TOMI) has spent the past 10 years working with organic farmers to overcome this challenge through breeding and investigating how to promote beneficial plant-soil-microbial relationships. Now we propose to build on the knowledge and resources we have developed and create practical tools organic farmers can use to prevent foliar disease outbreaks and deliver tomatoes with end-use quality traits demanded by consumers in local marketplaces. Specifically, we will: 1) identify critical factors needed to promote the efficacy of biocontrol agents and adapt disease forecasting models to account for these practices; 2) use new molecular markers developed in our breeding program for promoting plant associations with microbes that have biocontrol capabilities and disease resistance traits, establish regional participatory breeding programs to select new germplasm from these pools, and develop a new decision-support tool that will help farmers select varieties best-adapted to their farms; 3) create new support networks that will help organic farmers, Extension educators, researchers, students and local food system actors (ie. chefs) connect, overcome production challenges through participatory research, and foster new marketing relationships; and 4) deliver novel and inclusive educational programs that support these efforts. These programs will be disseminated broadly through our website hosted by eOrganic, in webinars, on-farm workshops, print-based materials, variety showcases and TomatoFests. Results will be applicable to other crops.
Animal Health Component
80%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
80%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
Organic tomato growers need practical approaches to manage foliar diseases while meetings consumer demand for fruit with desirable end-use quality characteristics and protecting soil and water quality. Our project will address these challenges by 1) identifying and overcoming critical factors influencing the survival and efficacy of biocontrol agents, 2) establishing decentralized tomato breeding efforts based on regional needs, 3) creating new decision-support tools (DSTs) to help farmers better manage foliar diseases though biocontrol and varietal selection; and, 4) establishing new support networks and delivering novel and inclusive training programs that will help Extension educators and organic farmers better manage foliar diseases in vegetable cropping systems and connect with local chefs to increase marketability of their produce
Project Methods
Obj. #1:Identify critical factors influencing the survival and efficacy of biocontrol agents. These studies will focus primarily on SLS and PM due to their growing challenge nationwide and lack of research to develop solutions relative to other foliar diseases. We expect knowledge generated with respect to characterizing the diversity of the pathogens causing these diseases will not only help us in optimizing disease forecasting models, but will also aid in our efforts to breed for resistance to these diseases. We also expect results will be applicable to other critical foliar diseases we regularly encounter like LB, EB, GM, LM, and BS. We will start by screening popular tomato varieties as well as those under consideration in our breeding program in the greenhouse for their capacity to signal, support and respond favorably to soil and foliar applied biocontrol agents. Next, we will conduct on-farm trials in HT and OF systems in three distinct ecoregions (SE, MW, WC) using responsive genotypes and a commercial product containing a broadly adapted B. subtilis strain in years 1&2. Soil health, leaf microbiomes, climatic conditions, and pathogen timing & diversity will be quantified and compared with disease outbreaks. Local B. subtilis strains with biocontrol activity will be isolated from each ecoregion, and tested against the commercial strain in years 3&4. The data will be used to develop new disease forecasting models (see Obj. 3). These studies will be co-led by Hoagland, Luis & Davis.Obj. #2: Establish decentralized tomato breeding efforts based on regional needs. The goal of these studies is to provide organic growers with new OP varieties that produce abundant yields of markable fruits under high disease pressure. The major diseases of concern vary across the U.S. Standard management practices for organic market farmers also vary; for example, growing under HTs is more common in the MW, while OF production is more common in the WC. For that reason, the breeding program will tailor breeding and trialing efforts by region, while operating under a shared set of protocols and centralized winter advancement and marker testing. We will make crosses using genotypes identified in Obj. 1 with germplasm from our on-going program as well as others with known resistance genes and desirable end-use quality traits. Crosses for each ecoregion will be selected based on the most problematic foliar diseases in that region. Segregating populations will be evaluated in on-station trials in 5 states, and we will predict performance of new crosses based on traditional and genomic prediction methods. The relative stability and specificity of varieties, populations and traits including ISR, will be analyzed via changes in the genomes of divergently selected populations. Advanced lines will be evaluated in on-farm trials in 7 states in years 3&4. Data from the field trials will be used to support DSTs (see Obj. 3). These studies will be co-led by Dawson, Myers and Zystro.Obj. #3: Create new DSTs to help farmers better manage foliar diseases. Our goal with this objective is to develop new DSTs that will allow organic growers to implement new insights and germplasm generated in Objectives 1&2, effectively reduce foliar disease outbreaks, and increase the yield and quality of their tomato fruit. We will combine data collected over the past 10 years of the TOMI project with new, more specialized data collected during TOMI3 to create two DSTs. One will help growers better manage diseases by using disease forecasting models that have been adapted by our team to account for biocontrol agents and HT production systems. The second will help growers select best-adapted varieties for their farm using on-line data management and forecasting tools. These activities will be led by Raturi.Obj. #4: Establish new support networks and deliver novel and inclusive training programs. We know that there are currently many barriers limiting the effective transfer of new knowledge generated from academic research to stakeholders, and organic farmers often gain the greatest benefits by interacting and learning from each other. Consequently, we will establish regional networks fostering communications between TOMI personnel, organic farmers, Extension educators, chefs and consumers using CBNs developed by Selman as a model. Subgroups will focus on on-farm research activities, and larger events such as our variety showcases and tomato festivals will engage larger groups with regional foodsheds. We will critically review the impacts of previous TOMI outreach programs as well as other relevant projects to design a suite of training programs and products that can best engage and support a diverse audience of organic food system stakeholders. These activities will be led by Gu, Formiga and Selman.ors influencing the survival and efficacy of biocontrol agents.