Jan 28, 2013PCN detected in two new Idaho fields
Two more fields were positively confirmed as infested with pale cyst nematodes (PCN) in Bonneville County, Idaho on Jan. 2, according to Tina Gresham, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service director of the PCN program.
The two new fields, one approximately, 65 acres, and the other, 35 acres, bring the total number of infested fields to 19 and total acreage to 2015.
PCN was first detected in eight fields in Bonneville and Bingham counties between 2006 and 2007. Additional fields with PCN were detected in 2011. Along with the 2015 infested acres there are 14,042 associated acres that the PCN program regulates.
In the seven years since PCN was detected nearly a half-million soil surveys have been taken from the infected and associated fields.
Gresham said that one 50-acre field has completed the necessary bioassay tests and could return to potato production if the owner should decide to plant potatoes in that field.
Another five fields are currently going through bioassay testing in a containment facility at the University of Idaho in Moscow. The testing takes 18 to 24 months. Gresham said she hopes to have the results sometime in 2014.
