Welcome to USABlight, a national website that acts as an information portal on late blight. You can report disease occurrences, submit a sample for genotyping, observe current and past disease occurrence maps, and sign up for text disease alerts in your area. There are also useful links to a decision support system, and information about identification and management of the disease.
Late blight of potato and tomato caused by Phytophthora infestans is a devastating disease worldwide and led to the Irish potato famine in 1845. Under favorable weather conditions, tomato and potato crops can be destroyed within days if left untreated. Yield losses caused by late blight and the cost of control measures have been estimated to exceed 6.7 billion dollars annually and the disease is a major threat to food security worldwide. Knowing where the disease is present can help improve the efficacy of fungicide treatments. Click here for an informative pamphlet on the disease
The current version of USABlight is being managed by the Center for Geospatial Analytics at NC State. Funding is from the National Science Foundation Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Preparedness Grant. Contact Chris Jones if there are questions. The system is in active development while it is incorporated into a larger disease tracking system and we are looking for feedback and suggestions for the new interface.
USABlight was initially created with funding from UDSA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Competitive Grants Program Grant 2011- 68004-30154. See the About US – Original grantees page to learn about the original grantees that visioned USABlight. Additional support was received from USDA’s AFRI’s CIPM (2015-70006-24274) and iPIPE (2015-0097) grants.
Ristaino, J. B. , Delborne, J., Zering, K., Jones, C., Tateosian, L., Vatsavai, R., Ojiambo. P., Carbone, I, Meentemeyer, R., and Wei, Q. 2021. Real-Time Analytics to Monitor and Predict Emerging Plant Diseases. NSF PIPP, $1,000,000, 8/1/22-12/31/23.,
To cite the website
Ristaino, J. B., McGuire, J. and Boyles, R. 2009 . USABlight.org: A disease surveillance system for late blight in the USA. North Carolina State University, Raleigh.
