USA: Phytopathologist receives $3.95 million to study fruit rot in blueberries

A Michigan State University scientist has received a $3.95 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) to develop strategies to implement and maintain management practices effective for blueberry fruit rot. Timothy Miles, assistant professor in MSU's Department of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, leads a multi-institutional team of researchers looking for ways to improve the quality of blueberries while limiting their loss before, during and after harvest. . The USDA-funded project, part of the USDA Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), is called: BLUE-DYNAMO: An Interactive Platform to Provide Blueberry Horticultural and Disease Management Strategies for Cranberry Rot the fruit. Blueberries are sometimes called “little blue dynamos” because of their health benefits. In this case, BLUE-DYNAMO is an acronym that stands for Building the latest knowledge in extension: disease management that produces new and ...