Sitting at her laboratory station, Jen Olson meticulously places the alfalfa segments into the petri dish.
Olson, Oklahoma State University Extension plant disease diagnostician, swivels around in her stool, explaining the process. She doesn’t miss a beat, slowly placing each segment equally around in the dish. In her expertise, this specific plant suffers from root rot, but she wants to run additional testing to verify.
“Hopefully, we can help keep this healthy so the producer can get five more years out of that alfalfa,” Olson said.
This process has been a mainstay in Olson’s life for 18 years. Running tests. Diagnosing problems.
As one of four working at OSU’s Plant Disease and Insect Diagnostic Lab inside the Noble Research Center, Olson’s work focuses on identifying pathogens and working with producers to develop solutions.
As new plant and insect threats emerge throughout Oklahoma — last year alone, the lab identified nine new pathogens in specialty crops — the PDIDL lab can assist producers in all 77 counties, a luxury that some other states do not have.
“We are considered our state’s first line of defense against new and emerging pests and pathogens,” Olson said.
