www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower JANUARY 15, 2017 9
Washington State taps new
Clean Plant Center director
W
ashington State University has hired Scott Harper,
a plant pathologist with a background in citrus
viruses, as the new director for the Clean Plant Center
Northwest.
Harper, born in New Zealand, has spent most of his
career studying viruses in citrus trees, including the past
six years for the University of Florida. His background
will transfer easily to other
perennials such as apples,
cherries and pears, he said.
Viruses in plants are
extremely hard to get rid
of, Harper said at a meeting
of the Northwest Nursery
Improvement Institute
in early December in
Wenatchee, Washington.
Chemical controls some-
times help but don't kill
them. But they can be
lived with and controlled,
he said. In Florida, an
estimated 90 percent of
trees carry viruses; in New Zealand, the infection rate is
nearly 100 percent, but infections don't always manifest
depending on different combinations of scion, root-
stocks and geography. Still, he strongly urged growers to
use plant material certified as virus-free by a laboratory
such as the Clean Plant Center.
Harper will start once his U.S. visa is finalized with
federal authorities. He will replace Ken Eastwell, who
retired a year ago after helping found the center, one of
several facilities in a national network that screen plant
material for diseases. It's located at the university's
Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in
Prosser.
Scott Harper
