Robert M. Harveson, Extension Plant Pathologist
Panhandle R&E Center, Scottsbluff
The Panhandle Research and Extension Center (REC) was begun in 1910 with the establishment of the Scotts Bluff Experimental Substation.
Although the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) was not formally established until 1920, a decade later, plant pathology had a significant presence in western Nebraska even before the Substation in Scottsbluff was created.
Robert M. Harveson, Extension Plant Pathologist
Panhandle R&E Center, Scottsbluff
Goss’ wilt and leaf blight is a destructive bacterial disease of corn, caused by Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. nebraskense. It was first identified in 1969 from Dawson County near Lexington making it a true Nebraska native.
Over the next decade, it was identified from at least 53 other counties in Nebraska and also spread into Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, and Colorado. The disease was eventually identified from additional U.S. corn-growing states before disappearing in the mid-1980s just as suddenly as it first appeared.
Jackie Guzman, Extension Educator Scotts Bluff County
How are your children doing?
In recent months our state has experienced several natural disasters with flooding, storms causing hail damage to property and crops, and most recently the collapse of a tunnel in the irrigation canal serving Wyoming and Nebraska farmers impacting thousands of acres of farm land. Anyone who was not directly impacted by a disaster this year probably knows someone who has, teaching us that we are not immune to such events.
These events can cause heightened anxiety and stress in adults. So what are the implications for children?
Robert M. Harveson, Extension Plant Pathologist
Panhandle R&E Center, Scottsbluff
Bacterial wilt of dry beans, caused by Curtobacterium flaccufaciens pv. flaccumfaciens (Cff), has historically posed sporadic but often serious production problems in dry beans throughout the irrigated High Plains since its first report from South Dakota in 1922. In the early 1980s, the disease mysteriously disappeared, appearing only periodically on cull seeds at the processing plants, but with little economic damage.
