Art in Phytopathology

Lindsey du Toit
Washington State University

The three images that I submitted were taken in May 2003 using samples collected from a fungicide efficacy trial in a biennial cabbage seed crop located at the Washington State University's Northwest Washington Research and Extension Center (WSU - NWREC) in Mount Vernon, WA. The trial was inoculated in September 2002 with rye seed colonized by Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. The inoculum resulted in the production of approximately 20 apothecia per square foot in the spring of 2003.

I grew up in South Africa, where I completed my undergraduate education at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, in 1991 with a major in plant pathology. I then completed my MS and Ph.D. degrees in 1995 and 1998, respectively, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, majoring in plant pathology. My Ph.D. dissertation was on field and epidemiological aspects of common smut of sweet corn caused by Ustilago zeae, under the direction of Dr. Jerald Pataky. I was then diagnostician for the Plant & Insect Diagnostic Lab at the Washington State University Puyallup Research and Extension Center from 1998 to 2000, before taking the position of vegetable seed pathologist at the WSU-NWREC in Mount Vernon, WA in 2000. The focus of my position is the biology and management of diseases affecting small-seeded vegetable seed crops grown in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S.

The micrographs: Sclerotium and apothecium of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (8x, top); asci, ascospores, and paraphyses of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (320x, bottom left); and ascospores of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum (1600x DIC, bottom right).

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