Job Description:

• 1) Conducts research in nature, cause, and control of plant diseases and decay of plant products: Studies and compares healthy and diseased plants to determine symptoms of diseased condition.

• 2) Inoculates healthy plants with culture of suspected agents taken from diseased plants and studies effects to determine agents responsible for disease.

• 3) Isolates disease-causing agent, studies habits and life cycle, and devises methods of destroying or controlling agent.

• 4) Studies rates of spread and intensity of disease under different conditions of soil, climate, and geography, and predicts outbreaks of plant diseases.

• 5) Determines kinds of plants and insects that harbor or transmit disease.

• 6) Studies losses from deterioration of perishable plant products in transit or storage and develops practices to prevent or reduce losses.

• 7) Determines presence of disease producing agents in seed stocks to reduce losses from seed borne diseases.

• 8) May specialize in type of plant affected, such as cereal crops, fruit, or forest trees, or by type of disease, such as bacterial, virus, fungus, mycoplasma, or nematode.

• 9) May inspect flower and vegetable seeds and flowering bulbs for diseases, infections, and insect injuries.