R. solanacearum USDA-NRI project: Educationprogram

USDA-NRI Education Program

Accomplishments Develop a package of optimized education and management training modules that will educate stakeholders to control this pathogen, primarily by exclusion. (read the project summary for more details)
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Educational materials

Program delivery

Program Evaluation

Development of educational materials

The overall aim of our educational program is to ensure that key practitioners and industry professionals are familiar with the most current and effective tools for detection and management of this pathogen.

Four educational modules were developed based on input from the co-investigators of the project and on the current literature. Each module was reviewed for content and instructional design to ensure that all members of the team have a common knowledge base, and that our presentations will represent an expert consensus. Modules were optimized to serve diverse target audiences (diagnosticians, state specialists, researchers, graduate students, county faculty, consultants, industry representative, state inspectors, APHIS personnel, producers, and master gardeners), including definitions for technical terms. Modules content will constantly be revised following input from literature, output from our research program, and interaction with our target audience.

In addition to the fundamental biology of the pathogen, educational modules include description and photos of symptoms and signs of diseases, information on disease cycles and epidemiology, tools currently used for diagnosis and identification of the pathogen, and management strategies.

Delivery of educational materials

Ralstonia solanacearum / Bacterial Wilt - Brown Rot dedicated Website
Online since September 12, 2008.

This Ralstonia solanacearum Bacterial Wilt and Brown Rot Website was developped to continuously educate, communicate and connect with our target audiences. All our educational modules and research accomplishments are freely available through this web site.

Additionally, new alerts from off-shore literature and agencies, and from APHIS will be posted and/or linked to this web page. On-line surveys, ring-testing procedures, and other assessment tools (see below) will be implemented through this website. The long-term sustainability of this website will be supported by NPDN and University of Florida/IFAS Extension.

Website announcement. To reach our target audiences, our website URL was initially delivered through nationaly widespread mailing lists:

- The UF/IFAS pest alert.
09/19/08 - Multi-state Web site on Ralstonia solanacearum (brown rot, bacterial wilt) now online.
10/31/08 - National Plant Diagnostic Network newsletter - October 2008 issue.
- The NPDN First Detectors Newsletter of October, 2008. Vol. 5, #10.
- All mailing lists used for base line/initial survey delivery (see the Evaluation of program Effectiveness section below).

To increase our website target audience, a website announcement poster can be downloaded from this website and is routinely delivered to meeting and conferences attendees (see download counts below). This poster describes major aims of the project, URL address and main content of our website. It has been distributed to a diverse audience at the:

- SPDN annual meeting, Alabama, October 21-23 2008.
In collaboration with C. Harmon (UF-IFAS, SPDN), 45 website announcement posters were distributed to diagnosticians of the SPDN network.

- DRCAFTA-USAID training program, Guatemala, March 9-14 2009. In collaboration with C. Harmon (UF-IFAS, SPDN), 25 website annoucement posters were distributed to laboratory leaders involved in Sanitary/Phytosanitary testing from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and El Salvador.

- First joint meeting of the Florida Phytopathological Society and the American Phytopathological Society Caribbean Division, Florida, May 16-19, 2009. 20 website annoucement posters were distributed to researchers, graduate students, and extension agents.

- 24th Tomato Disease Workshop, Pennsylvania, November 3-5, 2009. 32 website annoucement posters were distributed to researchers, graduate students, industry representatives, consultants, and extension agents.

Website Poster
PDF file (280Kb)

Download counts
= 43

Website update notification. A Ralstonia-L mailing list was created to inform all subscribers on updates and additions to the website. This mailing list allows real-time delivery of new educational materials, regulatory information, new pest alerts and documents.

Website evaluation. See the Evaluation of program Effectiveness section below.

On-line articles

An article with general description and management information on Ralstonia solanacearum race 3 biovar 2 and the diseases it causes on potato, geranium and tomato was accepted for publication in APSnet Feature and Plant Health Progress, a peer-reviewed journal from APSnet.

	A first version of this article was published as the APSnet Feature Story of January 2009: *Champoiseau, G.P. and Allen, C. 2008. Ralstonia solanacearum* Race 3 biovar 2: Tropical Losses, temperate anxieties. APSnet Feature January 2009, G. D. Franc ed. Published online: APSnet Publisher. View archived article. Review*: Ralstonia solanacearum* forms a bacterial species complex with thousands of strains characterized around the world. The R. solanacearum Race 3 biovar 2 (or "R3bv2") subgroup is a highly-regulated quarantine pest in North America and Europe with the potential to disrupt trade — and in the tropical highlands of Asia, Africa, and South and Central America, it is a direct cause of hunger and economic hardship.

	A second, peer-reviewed, version of the article was accepted for publication in Plant Health Progress on March 13, 2009. This version then replaced the archive version of the APSnet feature story: Champoiseau, P. G., Jones, J. B., and Allen, C. 2009. Ralstonia solanacearum race 3 biovar 2 causes tropical losses and temperate anxieties. Online. Plant Health Progress doi:10.1094/PHP-2009-0313-01-RV. View article online - Download PDF. Review: R. solanacearum Race 3 biovar 2, which causes potato brown rot and Southern wilt of geranium, is a high-consequence quarantine pathogen in Europe and North America and causes large crop losses in tropical highlands. This practical review emphasizes prevention, detection, diagnosis, and effective management of diseases caused by this destructive pathogen.

Email notifications for these articles were delivered through our Ralstonia mailing list (see below), the UF/IFAS pest alert of 01/08/09, the APS News Capsule No. 260 of 01/08/09, and the APS News Capsule No. 266 of 04/02/09 for APS members.

Articles delivery. Webstats logs from the APSnet website were used to evaluate our articles delivery. See the "Evaluation of program effectiveness" section below.

Participation to meetings and conferences

This effort will establish channels with end users for dissemination of the developed modules on R. solanacearum race 3 biovar 2, brown rot of potato, Southern wilt of geranium, and bacterial wilt of tomato, depending on each target audience. Meetings attended so far:

		PPT Presentation PDF format
	- First joint meeting of the Florida Phytopathological Society and the American Phytopathological Society Caribbean Division, Florida, May 16-19, 2009. Title: Developing an effective international education program for management of Ralstonia solanacearum Race 3 biovar 2. Abstract...	1.25Mb

		Proceedings PDF format
	- Florida Tomato Institute Meeting, Naples, Florida, September 9, 2009. Title: Ralstonia solanacearum race 3 biovar 2: Description and strategies for best management of a select agent pathogen as a potential incitant of bacterial wilt of tomato.	6.6Mb

		PPT Presentation PDF format
	- 24th Tomato Disease Workshop, State College, Penssylvania, November 3-5, 2009. Title: Description and strategies for best management of Ralstonia solanacearum race 3 biovar 2 as a potential incitant of bacterial wilt of tomato.	2.3Mb

Organisation of outreach workshops

An hands-on workshop on recent DNA-based detection methods for Ralstonia solanacearum is currently being organized at the 2010 APS annual meeting. Visit the APS website for more information.

Evaluation of program effectiveness

The educational component of this project emphasizes participation of the end users (target audiences as described previously) to develop a nationwide prevention and detection network to successfully exclude R. solanacearum race 3 biovar 2.

Base line/initial survey

The objective of this survey was to determine the initial state of knowledge on R. solanacearum race 3 biovar 2 in our target audiences and to identify the diagnostic methods currently used or known in the U.S. The survey consisted of two questionnaires customized for each of the following target group including:

"Academic" group

Diagnosticians,
Graduate students,
Personnel of regulatory agencies,
Researchers,
Specialists

"Technical agent" group

Consultants,
Extension faculties,
Industry representatives,
Master gardeners,
Producers,
State inspectors

The survey was developed using the survey creator program from FreeOnlineSurveys.com and the recommendations from Penn State to produce quantifiable outcomes.

Prior to delivery, the survey was submitted to the Institutional Review Board of the University of Florida. Click here to see letter of approval.

Survey delivery. Iinvitations to the survey were delivered nationwide using mailing lists or diverse contacts to reach the following:

- Diagnosticians, using the NPDN First Detectors Newsletter of March, 2008. Vol. 5, #3
- APHIS regulators (via our collaborators).
- Academics, students and university staff personnel, using University of Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, and Wisconsin Plant Pathology Departments mailing lists (via our project collaborators).
- Southern and Eastern Plant Board Members (via their secretaries).
- Members of the potato, tomato, and geranium industry (via our project collaborators).
- Florida county agents (via our project collaborators).

Survey was accessible from March 24 to October 24, 2008.
Check back for survey results.

Website evaluation

- Website 6-month post-launch report.

Use of our website is quantified with the webstats program from Statcounter.com (which reveals not just web site hits, but who downloads what, who takes on-line modules, etc.).
Download report at PDF format.

Guidelines developed by the International Coalition of Library Consortia were used for statistical measurements of usage of web based educational resources.

- Users feedback: an online survey consisting of 1 open-ended and 5 rating-scale questions (no longer than 2 minutes) is accessible through our website to help improve its content. Survey is accessible since November 12, 2008.

The survey was developed using the survey creator program from FreeOnlineSurveys.com and the recommendations from Penn State to produce quantifiable outcomes.

Check back for survey results.

On-line articles impact

- Webstats logs from the APSnet website were used to measure delivery of our online article through the APSnet feature of Januray 2009.

After 6 weeks (February 15, 2009), statistics tracker counted 1,597 cumulative page views. Among these, about 75 were after the article was settled in the archives, indicating the value of APSnet Features is partly in its presence over the long haul. Unfortunately, we don't really have numbers that can be meaningfully interpreted regarding location.

Using the domains (that is, .com, .edu, etc.), article logs were as shown below (top 10 categories), indicating broad coverage within the US but also internationally:

Unresolved
Network (.net)
United States Educational (.edu)
Commercial (.com)
United States Government
France
Canada
Brazil
Greece
Argentina

31.4%
12.6%
10.2%
8.3%
5.2%
2.6%
2.3%
2.2%
2.8%
1.6%

Click here to see project timeline.