Webinar Date: July 23, 2026
Speaker: Bikash Ghimire, Ornamental Pathologist, Department of Plant Pathology, University of Georgia
Introduced and moderated by: Bethany Harris
Duration: 28:31
Segment: 08 of 08
Series: Cut Flower Symposium
Credit at a Glance
| CEU Categories | [PENDING] |
| Live attendance | CEU was offered at the live symposium on July 23, 2026. |
| Archive viewing | No credit is attached to this recording. |
Read the pending status literally. The categories offered at the live symposium were never supplied to the archive team, so this file cannot tell an agent which Georgia applicator categories, if any, this segment would sit under. That holds across every Cut Flower Symposium segment processed so far.
This is the segment in the series with the most pesticide content, and it needs the caveats. Ghimire names FRAC groups, four active ingredients by name, and a two step contact-then-systemic sequence. Nothing he says is a labeled rate or a use direction, and he points growers to the Georgia Pest Management Handbook for those. Two things to carry into any use of this recording:
- He calls mancozeb a copper-based fungicide, twice, at 20:35 for bacterial leaf spot and at 27:58 for Pectobacterium stem rot. Mancozeb is an EBDC, not a copper. If a grower repeats that pairing back to you, the recording is where it came from.
- No rate, interval, or crop clearance is given for any product named. Every material he mentions has to be checked against a current label for the crop in front of the grower.
Who This Is For
Use this with cut flower growers who are past the “what should I plant” stage and into “why does it keep dying.” The first four minutes are a production system comparison that works for anyone deciding between field and high tunnel. The next twenty are a disease-by-disease walk, which is where the value sits for a grower with a specific problem.
It also works for a diagnostics audience. His approach to root and crown rot is a field method rather than a lab one: pull the whole plant, look at the roots for discoloration and softening, and use the smell. The virus section is the same shape, with a five minute strip test a grower can run at the bench.
At 28:31 it fills a meeting hour with discussion time, or splits cleanly at 6:34, where the framing ends and the diseases begin. The three audience questions in the last three and a half minutes stand alone as a short clip.
What the Session Covers
- 0:27 to 4:16, framing. Open field against high tunnel, soil and previous crop, raised beds and organic amendments, what organic growers have to work with, and why cultural practice comes before fungicides.
- 4:16 to 6:34, sources. Root and stem diseases against foliar diseases, and the six routes a pathogen takes into an operation.
- 6:34 to 12:52, soilborne. Root and crown rot, water molds and zoospores, Phytophthora management, white mold, sclerotia, southern blight, and Fusarium stem rot in lisianthus.
- 12:52 to 21:10, foliar. Botrytis in the field and in storage, powdery mildew, FRAC groups, downy mildew, snapdragon rust, and fungal against bacterial leaf spot.
- 21:10 to 24:16, viruses and biologicals. INSV and TSWV, insect vectors, Agdia ImmunoStrips, and the biological product list.
- 24:16 to 25:02, resources. e-GRO and the Georgia Pest Management Handbook.
- 25:02 to 28:31, three audience questions. Aster yellows in coneflower, Botrytis in tulips year to year, and bacterial stem rot.
Viewing Notes for Asynchronous Use
The recording is a screen share of a slide deck with the speaker’s audio. Most of what he shows he also describes, but this segment is more visually dependent than the others in the series, because several diagnostics are color and pattern calls: the tan center and purple margin of Cercospora in zinnia, the yellow halo around an angular bacterial spot, black sclerotia against white mycelium, and two lines against one on an ImmunoStrip. A viewer relying on audio alone will lose those. Say so when you assign it.
One slide at 7:26 is a short video of a pathogen releasing zoospores. He narrates it, so the audio carries the concept, but the video is the reason the concept lands.
Two on-screen addresses are never read aloud. The e-GRO link at 24:32 and his contact information at 25:01 are both pointed at and never spoken. Neither is recoverable from the recording.
Pull These for Discussion
Four segments that carry a discussion on their own, with the timestamp range that answers each.
“Is that a disease or is that stress?” Watch 6:34 to 8:10. Chlorosis, wilt, and patchy dieback look the same whether the cause is abiotic or a pathogen, and his answer is to pull the plant and read the roots. Good opener because most growers in the room have misdiagnosed this at least once.
“You cannot rotate your way out of sclerotia.” Watch 10:21 to 12:52. Five years or more in the soil, and the shovel answer for southern blight: dig, turn the soil eight centimeters, bury the structures. Then ask the group what their actual rotation length is.
“Preventive only means you decide before you see it.” Watch 2:53 to 4:16. Biologicals have no curative activity, so an organic grower’s fungicide decision has to be made ahead of the symptom. This reframes the whole cultural practice list as the thing that buys you the time.
“Confirm it in five minutes for six dollars.” Watch 22:23 to 23:42. The ImmunoStrip walkthrough, including his zinnia reading TSWV positive and INSV negative. This is the most immediately actionable thing in the segment for a county office.
Resources to Share
Nothing in this segment can be handed out as a link, and that is worth knowing before you plan around it.
- e-GRO is named and described but its address is not spoken. Ask the symposium organizers before you promise growers a link.
- His contact information is on the closing slide and is not spoken. Same ask.
- The Georgia Pest Management Handbook is the one resource you can supply yourself, and he tells growers to use it before applying any fungicide.
- Agdia ImmunoStrips are named as the test kit source. No ordering information is given on the recording.
Three Things to Get Right When You Use This
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Correct the mancozeb pairing if it comes up. He recommends “copper-based fungicides like mancozeb” twice, for bacterial leaf spot and for Pectobacterium. His management advice for bacterial disease is sound on its own terms, and the product classification is the part to fix rather than the recommendation.
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He is new to this crop group and says so. He introduces himself as a new ornamental pathologist at UGA and, on the biological products, says he has tested some in turfgrass and is about to test them in ornamentals. That is a candid statement about where the local data stands, and it is worth passing on rather than smoothing over.
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Two words in the transcript could not be resolved. One is a descriptor inside the sporangia and zoospore explanation at 7:26; the other is the second downy mildew host after sunflower at 17:08. Neither survived three transcription passes. If a grower asks what the second host was, the honest answer is that the recording does not settle it.
Scaling Note
Target. Stage 3 derives from the Stage 2 package. Segment 04’s Extension Agent file ran 8.5 KB against a 15.0 KB archive summary, a ratio of 0.57. This archive summary is 14.8 KB, so the proportional target was about 8.4 KB.
Delivered. 9.2 KB, a ratio of 0.62, slightly over. The overage is in Credit at a Glance, which runs longer here than on any other segment in the series because this is the only one with pesticide content to caveat. Segment 04 needed none and its section ran four lines; this one carries two numbered warnings. That is the section an agent reads first and the wrong place to save space.
What was not scaled. Pull These for Discussion keeps four full entries, and Viewing Notes gained a paragraph the other segments did not need, because this is the first segment in the series where the visual channel carries diagnostic information the audio does not.
Processed for UGA Center for Urban Agriculture / Cut Flower Symposium Archives
Source: Stage 2 Archive Package, GTBOP_Archive_Summary_2026-07-23_GhimireDiseaseManagement.md