Chuanxue Hong (he/him/his)
Professor
Virginia Tech
Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States
Ping Kong
Virginia Tech
Virginia BEach, Virginia, United States
Thomas Brand
Landwirtschaftskammer Niedersachsen
Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany
Vladimiro Guarnaccia
University of Turin
Turin, Piemonte, Italy
Renaud Ioos
Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire de l’Alimentation
Malzéville, Lorraine, France
Margery Daughtrey
Sr Extension Associate
Cornell University
Riverhead, New York, United States
Doug Luster
Research Plant Physiologist
USDA-ARS-NEA, Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research Unit
Fort Detrick, Maryland, United States
Boxwood blight caused by Calonectria pseudonaviculata (Cps) and C. henricotiae (Che) is an emerging disease affecting everyone on the horticultural chain from grower to consumer. Here we report ever-expanding collaborative research initially aiming for American and German scientists to work together, taking a new look at the data they had collected from 15-years of field trials. We expected that reconsidering these data on boxwood cultivar and fungicide evaluation would allow to develop a better understanding of the disease field epidemiology. Once begun, this collaboration quickly expanded to include analyses and publications of cultivar performance and fungicide efficacy against boxwood blight, validating many previous studies that had largely been conducted using cuttings, liners and containerized boxwood plants with Cps under controlled environments and making this invaluable information available to the international community. An equally important expansion was the opportunity for Americans to move from studies of only Cps to include Che which dominated at the research site in Germany. As Che is more thermotolerant and damaging with fewer control options than Cps, our collaboration also triggered a survey of boxwood plantings in France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. This ever-expanding collaborative research has produced several publications, advancing boxwood blight science and mitigation innovations, and enabling growers, retailers, landscaping professionals and arborists, public garden managers and homeowners to better protect boxwood crops and plantings.