Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

• Community and Urban Pest Management: commercial

• Vegetables: artichokes, asparagus, beans, beans (dry), beans (lima), beans (snap), beets, brassicas, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucurbits, eggplant, garlic, greens (leafy), greens (lettuces), leeks, lentils, okra, onions, other, parsnips, peas (culinary), peppers, radishes (culinary), rutabagas, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, taro, tomatoes, turnips

Target Pests

• Target Pests: bacterial diseases, blight (early), blight (late), other, powdery mildew, septoria leaf spot

Practices

• Pest Management: exclusion, prevention

• Crop Production: greenhouses, high tunnels or hoop houses, low tunnels, other

• Production Systems: aquaponics, hydroponics, organic agriculture, transitioning to organic

• Sustainable Communities: local and regional food systems, quality of life, sustainability measures, urban agriculture

The demand for healthy, organic, and sustainably produced food products is steadily increasing, along with the diversity of methods used for cultivating them. These systems range from community gardens, home gardens, and rooftop farms to urban farms utilizing hoop houses, high tunnels, and advanced controlled structures like hydroponics, aeroponics, and vertical farms. However, small urban production systems have historically been overlooked in terms of addressing plant disease challenges and developing best management practices, especially when compared to large-scale commercial production systems. Moreover, the emerging indoor production systems remain understudied, primarily due to their diverse configurations and relatively recent development. The variability in these systems, as well as the range of experience among those managing them, significantly impacts plant health.

There is a critical knowledge gap in understanding plant disease challenges within diverse urban production systems, particularly in terms of extension and outreach efforts. This seed project aims to address these gaps by investigating disease challenges in urban environments, generating data to educate a diverse range of stakeholders, and building a foundation to develop integrated disease management strategies by producing baseline information that will help leveraging transdisciplinary expertise, to create both local and regional impacts on sustainable plant disease management in urban agriculture. We aim to do this by dividing the urban scenarios into four macro areas – community gardens, hoop house/high tunnel production, traditional greenhouses, and high-tech controlled environments. Through extensive surveys and sampling, we aim to identify and analyze the diversity of pathogens present in these systems, highlighting both the differences and similarities in their occurrence and impact. The rationale of the seed project proposal is that once the key disease challenges and the key factors attributing to these challenges are identified, tailored integrated disease management strategies can be then adopted that are system specific. The proposed research aligns with regional IPM priorities, specifically focusing on the development and implementation of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems. It aims to provide critical insights into the major plant disease challenges in urban vegetable production, enabling the development of system- and crop-specific management strategies. Additionally, the project will generate updated information and share it widely through comprehensive outreach efforts.

The project will collaborate with the Center for Urban Agriculture, local NGOs, and county agents to conduct surveys and evaluations, assessing the incidence and severity of diseases across various urban vegetable production systems managed by diverse stakeholders. The information generated will be useful to other extension agents and specialists in designing tailored strategies for their regions, creating a regional impact. Moreover, the project’s outreach bundle, supported by high-quality data, will use a variety of dissemination methods to reach a wider audience.

Our overarching goals are to 1) identify major disease pathogen challenges, including incidence and severity, in four distinct urban vegetable production settings; 2) evaluate current production practices and their impact on pathogen distribution, by comparative analysis of pathogen incidence and severity in different facilities; and 3) develop educational resources and opportunities for practitioners, gardeners, growers, and other stakeholders involved in urban vegetable production.

1) Identify major disease pathogen challenges, including incidence and severity, in four distinct urban vegetable production settings;

2) Evaluate current production practices and their impact on pathogen distribution; and

3) Develop educational resources and opportunities for practitioners, gardeners, growers, and other stakeholders involved in urban vegetable production.