Enhancing Capacity for Airborne Fungal Spore Monitoring in Horticultural Nurseries of Washington State

Fungal pathogens threaten Washington’s agricultural and natural resource sustainability. Disease management is costly, but early detection and informed production practices can reduce impacts. Spore-trapping offers a proven way to detect and quantify airborne fungal propagules, but has not been commonly applied in horticultural nurseries. This project will demonstrate their use in an ornamental nursery system for monitoring Cryptostroma corticale—the fungus causing sooty bark disease in maples. The objectives are to: (1) develop an approach to detect and quantify C. corticale spores and (2) validate the approach within a nursery by comparing results to forest and urban landscape settings. We hypothesize aerial C. corticale spores will be detectable in all three settings, but quantities will be the highest in forests due to proximity to symptomatic hosts. This project will build spore-trapping capacity at WSU, enhance detection of a cryptic pathogen, demonstrate practical nursery applications, and support Taylor McNees’ PhD training.