[Image: Training]LSU AgCenter extension personnel associated with the Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic and the Nematode Advisory Service conducted a 2-day training session for county extension agents on August 19-20, 2008. Twenty-one county agents attended the training session, which focused on various aspects of plant disease diagnosis.
Dr. Lawrence Datnoff, head of the Department of Plant Pathology & Crop Physiology, and Dr. Bobby Fletcher Jr., assistant director of the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service, kicked off the session with welcoming remarks to the group. After a brief introduction about the Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic, Dr. Don Ferrin shared some useful tips on how to use a hand lens and light microscope for initial disease diagnosis. He then discussed different methods for preparing microscopic slides from diseased plant tissue, and agents were given time to familiarize themselves with these tools. This was followed by a presentation by Dr. Clayton Hollier on signs and symptoms of disease and their utility in disease diagnosis. The afternoon session featured a presentation by Dr. Charles Overstreet on nematode extraction and[Image: Training] identification. This was followed by a hands-on tour of the laboratory of the Nematode Advisory Service and a tour of the Plant Disease Diagnostic Clinic hosted by Dr. Raghuwinder Singh. The first day of the training concluded with a return to the teaching lab for a brief introduction to further “tricks of the trade” by Dr. Ferrin and additional hands-on experience working with disease specimens.
Day 2 of the training started with a discussion on sample submission lead by Dr. Singh. He also discussed the use of the Louisiana Distance Diagnostic Network (LDDN) to submit both physical and digital images of plant dise[Image: Training]ase samples. This was followed by a presentation by Dr. Overstreet on the basics of digital photography. Dr. Singh then introduced the participants to molecular methods used for pathogen detection and identification, including immunostrips, ELISA, dsRNA analysis, Biolog and real-time PCR. The session ended with a presentation by Dr. Hollier on “first responder training.”