Biologists researching outbreak of potato killing disease

Daymon Hail, graduate student and biology lab manager, eats a potato chip. He is studying the cause and possible cures for potato diseases. Photo by Beck Alleman.

A career in biology naturally involves a meticulous amount of research for any biologist, but for Dr. Blake Bextine and a few student researchers, there is an epidemic that is anything but ordinary research.  They are researching the potato psyllid, which is spreading a disease known as Zebra Chip on potatoes in countries all over the world.

Daymon Hail, graduate student and biology lab manager, is one of the Zebra Chip researchers and is researching the cause and possible cures for it for his graduate thesis.

“This sort of fell in my lap,” Hail said.  “I was originally working on research for the [Glassy Winged] Sharpshooter, and I wanted to figure out what bacteria lived in the potato psyllid.”

The disease itself is capable of annihilating entire fields of potatoes, visually affecting the final product: potato chips, according to the International Psyllid Genome Consortium website. “Zebra Chip causes brown and white stripes to form in the potato, which eventually kill the plant,” Hail said.

Bextine and the other researchers are doing all they can to find the genetic cause and, hopefully, solution, of the outbreak. “One of our main goals is to understand how they move through North America through the year,” Bextine said.  “We do this genetically by collecting samples from all over the U.S. and extracting DNA from them.  From this we can look at their genetic profile and find out who is related to who.”

Once they acquire the DNA, they use the information to trace the psyllid in order to begin finding a solution. “Using molecular biology, we can forecast where [the potato pyllid] will be based on their movement throughout the year,” Bextine said.  “We also just got the first Potato psyllid cell culture started, so we can study them at the cellular level.”

Hail said ultimately, their goal relies mainly on genetic control by utilizing bio-organisms.

“Ideally, we want to find something, be it a bacteria, virus, to serve as a bio-control mechanism, to basically prevent the spread of the disease by preventing the spread of the insect,” Hail said.  “If that fails, we would try blocking genes that are involved in wing or leg development, or disease transmission.”

Ultimately, they know their work on stopping the spread of Zebra Chip is crucial to the survival of many plants, and the careers of many farmers as well.
“To the farmers, this research is extremely important,” Hail said.  “They are losing millions of dollars from farming.  Some farmers have even come together to donate to the research.”

Hail said it would take some time before concrete evidence of success is seen. “After putting out the final product, it’ll take between five and 10 years before we see real results,” Hail said.  “But this is something no one has done before, there’s no precedent to what we’re doing.”