by Madelyn Ostendorf
This article is part of a series highlighting CALS students participating in the 20th anniversary of Science with Practice. The other articles feature research by Caroline Strawhacker, junior in agricultural business, and Rachel Becker, senior in horticulture.
Emma Alstott, senior in global resource systems and horticulture, is working to address an issue that blueberry growers in southern Iowa brought to her Science with Practice mentor, Suzanne Slack. These growers were unsure why their bushes were declining, so Alstott and Slack, along with graduate student Brooke Dietsch, took samples to identify the issue.
The mentor/mentee team has been working together on this since the summer of 2024, identifying a variety of reasons for the decline. This past semester, Alstott located one of the potential causes as fusarium, a fungus, but that wasn’t the end of the story.
“In highbush blueberries in Iowa, fusarium hasn’t been identified as a pathogen,” Alstott said. “To tell these growers what their issue is and for the purpose of good scientific practice, we needed to prove it was pathogenic.”
In plant pathology, a process exists to determine if a microbe is actually pathogenic to a plant, known as Koch’s Postulate. The postulate identifies four criteria that must be met:
- The microorganism must be found in abundance in all organisms suffering from the disease but should not be found in healthy organisms.
- The microorganism must be isolated from a diseased organism and grown in pure culture.
- The cultured microorganism should cause disease when introduced into a healthy organism.
- The microorganism must be re-isolated from the inoculated, diseased experimental host and identified as being identical to the original specific causative agent.
Alstott’s interest in the fusarium was born not just from the specific ask of the blueberry growers, but also from a desire to become more comfortable with a variety of microorganisms. She has had extensive experience working with bacteria but wanted to expand her expertise to fungal pathogens, as they are common in plant pathology.
“Working with fungal microbes is a lot more complex than working with bacteria,” Alstott said.
She recommends taking Science with Practice because being a good scientist requires more than just knowing how to do scientific research.
“It’s so much more than just doing the science; you need to know the professional parts behind presenting research and recording results, and making it look presentable,” Alstott said. “I was really excited to finally be a part of the program this semester. It wasn’t just about doing research, but also about how we can help you become the best professional you can be and equip you with all the necessary skills.”
Alstott is nearing the end of her project, and the team has determined that this fusarium is not pathogenic in highbush blueberries. She is excited to have not only another research project under her belt, but new project management skills and experience with an entirely new range of pathogens.