Announcement

Reposted announcement! USDA lab is still looking for specimens.

NPDN would like to announce the release of the 2024 Lab Capacity and Impact Evaluation Survey Answers Report. The NPDN Annual Lab Capacity And Impact Evaluation survey is a questionnaire designed to survey the diagnostic capacity, capability, and contributions of diagnostic labs in NPDN. The 2024 survey received 73 responses from NPDN labs in 53 states and territories. View the 2024 answers analysis HERE

Dear NPDN friends,

My colleague Pedro Pablo Parra, a former postdoc in my lab and now a Project Manager at the European Union National Reference Laboratories, is seeking specimens from the following genera of rust fungi: Chrysomyxa, Cronartium, Gymnosporangium, and Melampsora.

If you are working with these genera, have specimens available, or can connect me with individuals who routinely collect them, please let me know.

USDA APHIS PPQ’s Plant Pathogen Diagnostics Certification Program (PPDCP) is onboarding new labs for program participation.

Onboarding typically includes an introductory meeting, submitting records that demonstrate your lab’s established quality and biosafety systems, a virtual walkthrough, a “pretest” consisting of small sample sets, and finally, proficiency testing to certify the lab’s diagnosticians.

The MFIT and PPCDL Workshop Registration Request Form submission deadline is quickly approaching. The forms must be submitted by close of business on Wednesday, November 27, 2024. Please submit your requests soon if you are hoping to attend a workshop in 2025.

What’s the next step? Workshop invitations will be sent out as participants are selected. The workshop coordinators will send out a listserv notice when the first invitations are sent out so applicants can be on the lookout.

Registration is now open for PPCDL and MFIT workshops. Last day to register is November 27, 2024.

We are requesting one form per lab, please designate a submitter and include all your lab’s selections in one form submission for each type of workshop, PPCDL or MFIT.

Register for PPCDL Workshops

2025 PPCDL Workshops Information Page

To determine the distribution and diversity of the rust Pseudocerradoa on Monstera species (e.g., Swiss cheese plant, split-leaf philodendron, five-holes plant, etc.), the USDA Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory is seeking fresh specimens from across the United States. Symptoms of this disease include small chlorotic leaf spots that expand and become brown to reddish-brown, often with a yellow halo, and uredinia with abundant urediniospores (Urbina et al., 2023) (Figure 1).

We are excited to kick off the 2025 GPDN Webinar Series! This annual series is a great opportunity to discuss topics that affect our network and partners.

The PPCDL Workshop Planning Team has asked us to create a new method for registering the workshop participants. The NPDN Professional Development Committee members have been helping create and review this new process and form. Join us for a webinar with the NPDN’s PPCDL Workshop Coordinator, Karen Snover-Clift.

On behalf of the Accreditation Committee, I am excited to announce the first NPDN Core Accredited Lab: Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development! The lab became accredited on October 01, 2024.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Dorman and Dr. Stefanie Rhodes for this significant accomplishment!