Kamal Chhetri, PhD student
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA, USA
Thomas D. Reed
Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Virginia Tech, Blackstone, VA 23824 / School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061
Blackstone, Virginia, United States
Caleb Bishop
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia, United States
Bobby Clark
Shenandoah Coop Extension Service
Woodstock, Virginia, United States
Boris A. Vinatzer
Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061
Blacksburg, Virginia, United States
David Langston, PhD
Professor of Plant Pathology and Extension Specialist
Virginia Tech
Tidewater AREC, Virginia, United States
Yuan Zeng
Assistant Professor
Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Virginia Tech, Blackstone, VA 23824 / School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061
Blackstone, Virginia, United States
Early detection of airborne plant pathogens is crucial for effective disease management in agriculture. This study integrates low-cost, solar-powered rotating-arm spore traps with metagenomic sequencing to monitor airborne fungal pathogen dynamics in two corn fields located in New Market and Blacksburg, Virginia. Air samples were collected biweekly from plant emergence to senescence. Extracted DNA samples underwent ligation-based library preparation and were sequenced on the Nanopore MinION platform. Filtered reads were mapped to the corn genome to remove host sequences, and unmapped reads were aligned to a custom database of corn foliar fungal and ear rot pathogen genomes using bioinformatic tools. Our results showed that airborne corn fungal pathogens can be identified at the species level, with variations in composition and abundance across time and locations. Cercospora zeae-maydis, responsible for gray leaf spot, dominated in Blacksburg, followed by Fusarium graminearum, the causal agent of corn ear and stalk rot. In contrast, F. graminearum was the dominant pathogen in New Market, followed by Curvularia lulata, which is responsible for Curvularia leaf spot. Notably, Phyllachora maydis, the emerging tar spot pathogen, was detected in spore trap air samples 14 days before visible stromata appeared in the New Market field. These findings highlight the potential of combining spore traps with metagenomic sequencing for airborne pathogen surveillance in agriculture, aiding in optimizing fungicide timing for improved disease management.