F. William Zettler
Education
Ph.D., Cornell University, 1966
My research involves the characterization, epidemiology, and control of viruses infecting ornamental plants (e.g., orchids, gladiolus, and dieffenbachia) and certain edible plants of the tropics (e.g., peanuts, taro, and cocoyam). I am especially interested in developing virus detection methods and control strategies that can be applied commercially. My studies include using tissue culture methods for large-scale production of pathogen-free stock and assessing the economic value of this technology for producing propagating material. I teach two courses in plant pathology: "General Plant Pathology" and "Plants, Plagues and People".