MSU expert to talk about American chestnuts, blight, hypovirulence

TRAVERSE CITY — Dr. Carmen Medina Mora will speak on the state of American chestnuts and hypovirulence — the inoculation of chestnut trees against blight — at the Feb. 5 meeting of the Master Gardener Association of Northwest Michigan.

Mora is a former graduate student and colleague of renowned chestnut expert and Michigan State University (MSU) professor Dr. Dennis Fulbright.

The meeting will be held at the Boardman River Nature Center at 1450 Cass Road in Traverse City. Refreshments will be served at 6 p.m. and the program will start at 6:30 p.m.

Mora is currently the professional aide and laboratory technician in Sakalidis’ laboratory at MSU. Her current interest involves forest tree diseases, where she can apply molecular techniques to detect, identify and manage diseases.

Her areas of expertise include but not limited to chestnut blight disease and bacterial canker of tomatoes.

Mora received her PhD at Michigan State University, where she worked on current aspects of pollination biology of chestnut trees (Chestnut Orchard Solutions), and the use of Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) to characterize chestnut trees growing in Michigan.

She obtained her Mater’s degree from the Department of Plant Pathology at MSU where she determined and defined genetic variation of the causal agent of bacterial canker disease, and described the etiology and development of bird eye lesions on tomatoes.

Mora attained her Bachelor’s degree in microbiology (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Puerto Rico-Humacao.

Her interest to apply molecular biology to current plant pathology issues has never stopped since she discovered how to integrate three of her passions: microbiology, plants and technology.

“We’re are excited to hear Carmen speak on this important topic. Chestnuts were such an iconic American species before they were almost wiped out. It is amazing that solutions now exist for their revival,” said Michele Worden, president of the Master Gardener Association of Northwest Michigan. “Chestnuts are such an incredible tree – beautiful shade providers and landscape specimens, nutritious food source, rot-resistant lumber and wildlife habitat. Truly a tree that does it all.”

The Master Gardener Association of Northwest Michigan (MGANM) furthers the horticulture education activities of MSU Extension through monthly educational presentations. Meetings are held monthly on the first Tuesday of the month and are open to the public.