Mariam Begum, our new plant pathologist.
New plant pathology service!
As we announced 2 months ago, we have created a new disease identification service. We are now very pleased to announce that we have hired a world-class plant pathologist to run this service.
Meet Mariam Begum
Mariam Begum comes to us from CSIRO, where she worked for 13 years as a food microbiologist.
Mariam trained as a plant pathologist in Bangladesh, where she gained a bachelor’s degree in agricultural science from the Bangladesh Agricultural University. After gaining a master of plant pathology degree from there, she spent 9 years lecturing in plant pathology. In the early 1990s she was awarded a scholarship to study at Bristol University, UK, where she gained a master of science in crop protection.
Mariam migrated to Australia in 1997 and quickly accepted work at CSIRO, where she worked her way up to a research position. Budget restrictions forced CSIRO to make Mariam and several others redundant recently. Their loss, our gain. We are very fortunate to have Mariam working with us now, as she brings over two decades’ experience in all aspects of plant pathology, including bacteriology, mycology (the study of fungi), crop diseases and soil diseases.
New diagnosis service
As we explained in the previous article, SESL has always offered a complete testing service, covering soil, water, plant tissue, pesticides and much besides. To do this, we have had to send out some samples to outside specialist labs. Now that we have Mariam on board, we can offer a much faster turnaround and a more detailed disease diagnosis than ever before.
Our service covers the following features:
- Rapid disease identification: a 48-hour turnaround for common and easily recognised diseases, but up to a week if Mariam has to grow disease organisms in the lab before she can identify them.
- Diseases of turf, field crops, horticultural crops and ornamentals.
- Fungal diseases, bacterial diseases, viral diseases (provisional ID only) and nematodes.
- Diseases of all plant parts: leaves, stems, roots, flowers, fruits, grain.
- Postharvest diseases.
- Indoor moulds from walls, ceilings, floors and other surfaces.
- Visual diagnosis and microscopy.
- Laboratory culture of organisms for unambiguous identification.
We want to emphasise that SESL’s all-new disease ID service is the only independent such service in NSW in the commercial sector. We have no chemicals to sell you.
What to send
Send us a sample that shows typical disease symptoms. Include leaves, stems, flowers, fruits, soil and roots, as appropriate. Collect several representative samples to ensure that the causative organisms are present. Aim for more than 10 g of each type, and pack them separately.
In addition to the sample, we need to know the recent weather at your location, cultural details, how long the problem has been noticeable and any other details you can tell us that will help us pin down the problem.
The sooner it can arrive, the sooner we can return a result and the sooner you can save the turf or crop, so use a courier, or drop it in yourself.
We will return a PDF (by e-mail in 48 hours) or a colour printout (by mail) with photographs of the microorganisms we’ve found and recommendations for treatment.
More to come
In another couple of months, when Mariam has her lab fully set up, we’ll do an article on a typical sample, following the specimen from its arrival to the final diagnosis.