Early Detection and Diagnosis of High‐Consequence Plant Pests in the United States

Abstract

Abstract The United States has over a billion acres of food, fiber, feed, and fuel production agriculture. US agriculture could be considered a large, soft target to those who would want to strike at the economy, the social stability, or the sense of security of the US citizenry. It would be technically easy to do. Early detection and diagnosis of pests and diseases of plants is the best way to limit spread and impact, whether they arrive naturally or are introduced deliberately. The US Department of Homeland Security and the US Department of Agriculture, together with its State Department of Agriculture partners, the Land Grant University System, the Cooperative Extension Service, and agricultural industry and commodity association partners have formal and nonformal surveillance systems, as well as networks of plant pest diagnostic facilities to accomplish early detection and diagnosis of newly introduced agricultural and forest pest agents. Due to the large geographic area that must be covered to be effective, physical surveillance has to be supplemented by predictive models and remote sensing technologies. Even when surveillance systems are working optimally, diagnostic laboratory throughput could be a bottle‐neck for the generation of information in near real time. The National Plant Diagnostic Network is a distributed system of laboratories designed to manage sample surge and produce data for syndromic analysis.