Plant Pathologists Honored

PULLMAN, Wash. — Three USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists at Washington State University have received the Ruth Allen Award from the American Phytopathological Society.

R. James Cook, who heads to the Root Disease and Biological Control Research Unit, and two permanent scientists in the unit — David Weller, a plant pathologist, and Linda Thomashow, a research geneticist — were honored this past week at the society’s annual meeting in Rochester, N.Y.

The award is made annually to an individual scientist or a team of scientists who have made outstanding contributions to the science of plant pathology.

Cook, Thomashow and Weller were honored for research on take-all decline, a phenomenon in which the soils of fields planted continuously to wheat eventually suppress the fungus that causes the disease.

Cook observed take-all decline in 1969 in soils taken from fields near Quincy.

At the same meeting, Dennis Gross, professor of plant pathology was one of 10 members named Fellows in the society.

APS grants the Fellows designation to current members in recognition for distinguished contributions to the field of plant pathology or to the society.

Gross, a member of the WSU faculty since 1979, studies plant pathogenic bacteria and bacterial diseases of fruit trees and potatoes.

– 30 –