Speaker 1  0:00  
Jim: Hi and welcome back to Plantopia. Plantopia is the plant health podcast of the American phytopathological society. And I'm the host of Plantopia Jim breeding. I'm a professor of plant pathology and associate vice president at Colorado State University. And today we are talking with Dr. Richard Dunkle. Ric holds a BS degree in Zoology from UC Davis and a PhD in Entomology with a minor in Plant Pathology, also from UC Davis, and Rick has spent his career in public service first with the California Department of Food and Agriculture as a field entomologist. In that role, he established CFAES biological control, pest management, and environmental monitoring programs. He later joined USDA Agricultural Research Service and for 18 years, Rick was engaged in insect pathology research. before pursuing several roles in management leadership. They included director of the US grain marketing research laboratory, Director of the National Center for Agricultural utilization research, and director of the Midwest area. In 1999, Ric assumed the role of Deputy Administrator of USDA APHIS plant protection and quarantine, overseeing USDA plant regulatory and trade programs related to phytosanitary issues. And since 2008, Ric has served as the Senior Director of seed health and trade for the American Seed Trade Association or ASTA. ASTA is amongst the oldest trade associations in the US and represents more than 650 companies involved in seed production and distribution, plant breeding and related industries. ASTA is involved in nearly all issues related to plant germ plasm, but focuses on three key areas, regulatory and legislative issues, new technologies, impacting crops, communication and education of members and the public. And we're going to talk more about ASTAin just a minute. In his role with ASTA, Ric oversees phytosanitary issues associated with international seat movement and coordinates issues related to seed quality testing and research. Ric, thanks so much for joining us on Plantopia.

Unknown Speaker  2:21  
Ric:  It's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 1  2:24  
Jim: I'd like to know a bit about how you got into your current role. You've had quite a career that started with zoology, now you're working in the area of seed pathology? How did you end up in this field?

Speaker 2  2:35  
Ric: Okay, well, it's been a serendipitous route. Just a little anecdote. When I got my PhD degree, my major professor at the time reminded me that it's this is not just a certificate that I'm an expert in some field of science. It's a certificate that I have learned how to learn. And so I think that's a message that students these days really need to understand. Because if they go 30 years into their career, and look back, chances are they're not going to be doing what they were originally trained to do. So and I think I'm a pretty good case of that. I came out of college as an entomologist, I focused on insect pathology, some but I was also did a lot of field work in biological control and some other areas. And then when I got into the Agricultural Research Service, I sort of went up up the ranks into management leadership. And so I had various positions and lab directors, and so forth. And then in 1999, I was recruited to come over to the animal Plant Health Inspection Service, and I had no intention of leaving hrs. But they told me, the reason why they wanted me to come over was because they wanted to break down their science based decision making over there, they wanted to make sure their regulatory decisions were being based on science. And so that provided a great opportunity to bring science more into the regulatory decision making process. I spent about almost nine years in APHIS, I was the deputy administrator for plant protection and quarantine. So I've managed all of the plant programs for the agency. And then I finally decided to retire but I couldn't stay retired very long. So I ended up being recruited by the American Seed trade association to come in and help them with phytosanitary issues related to seed business. And so actually looking back I've been I've been with ASTA now 15 and a half years. Time flies when you're having a good time. I guess

Speaker 1  4:30  
Jim: That sounds like a great journey. And I love that message that PhD degree or really any degree is all about knowing how to learn and certainly the evolution of your career that we're all growing and changing throughout our career that that resonates with me as well. I think it's a really important message to share. Thanks for sharing that.

Speaker 2  4:48  
Ric: I just wanted to add one little caveat to that too. I was very fortunate in that I minored in plant pathology, as well as I was able I went from Science to Policy and then back home work towards science and technical issues when I came back to American Seed Trade.

Speaker 1  5:03  
Jim: That broad spectrum, I'm sure it's served you very well throughout your career. So you've mentioned now American Seed Trade Association, or ask that tell us a bit more about what ASTA is. And what it does?

Speaker 2  5:16  
Basically, ASTA is  one of the oldest, straightest organizations in the United States, we've been around since 1883. We have around 650 members to 700 members in our association, most of them are seed companies. But there are also various provider organizations as well. And even in some universities are members of the American Seed Trade Association, but we advocate for the seed industry. And what's nice about acid is we represent all aspects of the seed industry here in the United States. So we're, you know, A to Z alfalfa to zucchini, we're large companies, we're small companies were biotech, we're organic. So we provide a forum for all of the different sectors of the seed industry to come together, work through our common problems and work for policies. And then we advocate for our industry, both nationally through Congress and whatnot, but also internationally as well.

Speaker 1  6:12  
Jim: And a lot of your, your involvement with AsTA right now focuses on international trade of seed, is that correct? 

Speaker 2  6:19  
Ric: Yeah, that's correct. My primary focus is what we call phytosanitary. And for those who may not understand or know about phytosanitary, that basically that is code for seeds can be a pathway for moving animals, pests and diseases from one place to another, you can have patents that are either on the sea or associated with the city, like, for example, various weed species, or in many cases, fungal fungal agents can be sort of on the scene code, and then when the seed moves to another country or whatever, then then it can serve as a mechanism to transfer or transmit these unwanted pests to new environments. And the worst case scenarios in our industry are pathogens in particular, that may be inside of the seed. So either seed mourners won't call seed transmitted, where they're actually inside the genetics of the seed perhaps, or right underneath the seed coat, those kinds of pathogens, and most of those are like viruses by roids, these kinds of things that are very difficult, because once you have a an organism and inside of a seed, it's very difficult to inactivate it particular. So that's the problem we have, how do you ensure that your seed consignments or your seed lots or your seed supplies are free of these various diseases and other pests. 

Speaker 1  7:40  
So helpus understand how big the international seed trade is, is that a little part of agriculture are a big part of agriculture,

Speaker 2  7:48  
Ric: It's a significant part of agriculture, but it's a little more complicated to it. Overall, the value of the seed industry worldwide is probably 55 to $60 billion dollars. It's a big elective industry out of that, you know, 10 to 15% of it is moving around internationally at any one time. And the challenge we have in the seed industry, per se, is that distinguishes us from most other agricultural commodities, is that there's a lot of seed movement internationally, this pre commercial breeding lines, for example, get moved around all over the place where you may have a parental line that's being increased in one country. And the other parental line for that species is being increased in another country, or you have controversies in production, you have all kinds of different pre commercial activities that go on before that final product moves, as well. So a lot of that is of high value to the company, but it's not being sold at that stage. So there's a lot of investment that goes on in those various stages.

Speaker 1  8:49  
Jim: And are you focused primarily on imports or exports, or both?

Speaker 2  8:53  
Ric: I'm focused on both. I'm focused on both. It's a global industry. In the case of the US, it's 10 to $12 billion. I do believe going in or out at any one time. So the US imports just as much seed as it exports, if you will. So each of the issues are different from a regulatory point of view, when you're importing seed into the US, you have to comply with us by the sanitary import requirements. And when you are exporting us seed or re exporting it through the US there's a lot of re exported in the seed industry, then you have to meet all these different phytosanitary requirements in these other countries. And it gets very complicated. And so there's a whole, for example, international regulatory structure for this. There's a framework called the International Plant Protection Convention, which is a subsidiary of the of FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organization. And their primary role is to develop and establish international standards for movement of commodities around the world, including seeds. And so the idea is all the countries that are members of the IPPC are suffering I chose to be using those standards as guidance so that the practices can be harmonized around the world. Even with all the standard activity setting activities, there's still lots of problems not get into those as we move on. But it's a fascinating area of and it's an area of science into itself.

Speaker 1  10:18  
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Speaker 1  11:16  
Jim: So plants interact with countless numbers of microbes. And that's probably true for seeds as well, who decides with a microbe is something that needs to be regulated, or it's just present everywhere, it doesn't pose a risk?

Speaker 2  11:32  
Ric: Well, in general, what may be a common pest in one country may be a quarantined pest in another country. So in the case of the US, in corn, we have a number of pathogens that are fairly common in the US, we have a high plains virus, for example, we have Goss's wilt, and corn. And these are fairly common pests. But if you go to Chile, those are quarantined pests, they do not occur in Chile are not supposed to occur in Chile. And so for them to regulate rare given pest, they have to go back to the international standards. And the justifications are that those paths either are not in their country, or if they are they're under what we call official control. So they're taking some kind of official action, either eradication, or containment through interior quarantines, or some other mechanism to keep the pests from spreading in their country. It's a gamut all over the world. I mean, pests occur in every country. Some of them are ubiquitous around the world. That's very true. And they're not regulated. But there are a lot of customers that fall into these various categories of either very restricted distributions in the world, or common in one part of the world and not in others. And so countries are are regulating or imposing phytosanitary import requirements, those pests where they are justified in doing.

Speaker 1  12:53  
Jim: So it sounds as though the guidelines from FAO that you referenced are really positioned to help regulators utilize science as part of their decision making process. Is that a fair assessment?

Speaker 2  13:05  
Ric: That's a fair assessment, for example, there's some there's some overarching standards that apply to about every commodity. So if a country wants to allow a commodity into their country, whether it's oranges or seeds, they have the authority to do they call a risk assessor and a pest risk assessment. And so you have to identify all the possible paths that could be associated with that commodity coming into a country, and then determining which of those are technically justified to regulate, then you ask yourself the question, what measures are out there that could be used to ensure that the commodity coming into their country is free from those pests, it could be a treatment, he could be a test, it could be the use of a systems approach, a collective of various methodologies that would work together to eliminate the pest from that commodity prior to its entry to another country. Basically, when there's absence of true science, then you have risk assessments, which are probability assessments, if you will, oftentimes, countries are in a situation where there's not enough published information about a particular pest. So they have to use their judgment or their scientific judgment in terms of what the risk of injury of that pests might be. They have to look at it in terms of well, what's the probability of entry if there's no mitigations at all? And then if it gets into my country, what's the likelihood that it would actually stablish? And then what's the likelihood that it would spread and cause concern at a broader level? That's where it really gets difficult, I think both for the countries involved but for the industry, as well, because it's the industry that's going to ultimately have to come up with the program to mitigate it is evaluated by that country of origin. So we wanted to export currency to Argentina, whatever mitigation measures that we have, would have to be ultimately endorsed by our country and approved by the country of Ghana. Import.

Speaker 1  15:00  
Jim: So we're gonna seed lot let's say it's for export a US seed lot that has been exported to another country when there is a restricted pathogen detected sounds that there at least in some cases, opportunities to mitigate that that seed lot isn't just destroyed, is that correct

Speaker 2  15:17  
Ric: Right, there's a lot of leeway. Our problem in our industry is, is we're a collection of 300 sub commodity. So each scene species has its own pest list, if you will. Now, the typical measures that are used for seeds are treatments where those are appropriate, and fumigation may be a treatment. But oftentimes, for fungal pathogens, it's it's a fungicidal treatment. If you're in the growth stage of that plant, you know, where you're producing the seed phytosanitary field inspections are often used to make sure that the pathogen or pest is not occurring in the production area, if you will. And then the people are trained to go out and do these phytosanitary field inspections to certify that they're free from, then there's the C testing option as well. And when you're looking at C testing options, they can vary all over the place, it could just be looking at seeds in a microscope and looking for things, it could be a selective growth medium. If you're looking at a bacteria, bacterial pathogen or fungus, you know, you may be able to see evidence of that pathogen through an AR medium over the course of time. The most difficult ones are ones where the pathogen may be inside of the sheet. And if the pathogens a virus, or a virus, those are the most difficult ones, because you can't plate those out. If they don't go through Cox postulates. Now you have to do a confirmatory bio assay if you build that route, which is very onerous, if you will, in itself. So over the course of the last, say 10 or 15 years, more and more countries have been advancing the use of PCR molecular CFL testing for these kinds of pathogens, and that that has really ramped up the issues, I think, for the seed industry, because in the international standard setting arena, there's a concept called the appropriate level of protection, the acceptable level of risk, what probability Are you willing to accept? Because there's absolutely no risk in the world, there's low levels of risk. So what level of risk are you willing to take, and usually, up until the last 10 or 15 years, that's sort of in a probability assessment, you know, a 95% chance of detecting a point 1% level of detection or a 1% level of infection? Well, now that we've got into Mullah into molecular CDL, testing, these methods are so sensitive, you know, what Ct value do you want to cut off? If you go all the way up to like ct 32 or 35? You know, that's trace amounts. Now you're in a gray area? Where are you detecting enough DNA or RNA where that organism was biologically relevant? Is it capable of reproducing? Or are you down to fragments at that level of detection where, where you're below that capability for it to reproduce. And so what's happened is, is that the, in the regulatory world, it's pretty much black or white. If you run a PCR test for a particular pathogen, and you get a you get a hit, even at a very high Ct value, that shipment may be rejected, that could some it may be rejected, even though it may not even be biologically relevant. And so we're seeing more and more of that happening. The acceptable level of risk then, is defined by the level of sensitivity in the method. It's not even a biological situation anymore, you're down to that you're down to squeaky, squeaky clean, and RGB. An example where that really we're experiencing this right now. I'll go back to high plains virus on corn. This, this virus is causing us a real world issue right now. Because High Plains virus commonly occurs in the US. And in this case, it's a quarantined pass for the country of Chile. And there's a lot of sweet corn exports that go down to Chile. A lot of breeding programs and these kinds of things. And so, High Plains virus is our second attack both wheat and corn, and a number of other small grains but mainly wheat and corn expected by the week hurl mite in the Pacific Northwest there's a lot of wheat grown in close proximity to sweet corn. The mic builds up in the wheat and then when the wheat starts to dry down or starts to get harvested the mic it becomes windblown and drifts over into sweet corn fields. And there begins to feed feed as a secondary pest on corn. Depending on the stage of the corn depends on the the risk level of the High Plains virus can be see transmitted, that's one of the problems we have. If it blows into corn, where the seed is still being developed in the plant the like and feed on the corn, inoculate the plant, and eventually, some higher plants can get into the seed at that stage. Now see transmission is very low, but it's still there. On the other hand, if the corn is at a later stage, and it's already set seed, the mite will still feed on the corn plant caused late season symptoms, but also maybe feed on the pericarp of the corn. So now at the end of the year, after you've harvested and you've run a molecular seed health test your high plains virus, you're going to get a positive. But in the case, that late season stage, it's not seed transmitted at that stage, but it'll be if it's detected positive, the shipment will be in check. So we're we're now actually funding some research through some folks at The Ohio State University, some ARS scientists, in partnership with the Ohio State University, to actually do some detailed studies on trying to correlate the stage of the plant with the infection to determine under what conditions High Plains virus will be seed transmitted. And then secondly, looking at do asymptomatic plants pose a phytosanitary risk because now if you run a stone the plant he could it could be resistant to High Plains virus, there are resistance genes for this. But there could be titers of the of the High Plains virus in the plant. If you test the plant, in particular with molecular methods, then you're going to get a positive. But the question is, if the plant is resistant, or even highly tolerant, is it transmitting biplanes virus numeracy? Yes or no? And that's a key question that has to be answered. So we're looking at High Plains virus, and I like to develop information specific for this issue. But this could also be a model or simpler viruses as well, because there's very little information in the literature about the nature of seed transmission, and under what conditions it poses a significant risk. It's complicated. And I'll tell you why now, too, from the industry point of view, why this is so important, Chile is very as a very important country to the sweet corn industry, because there are a lot of breeding programs down there. And so there's a lot of a lot of breeding lines that are developed here in the United States that are sent down to Chile, and further evaluated, developed and selected for increase in these kinds of things. But to produce those lines, you may have a five hectare field here in the US that may have 5000 Different breeding lines represented in that one field, you go in under the traditional phytosanitary system, do a phytosanitary field inspection when if you find some infected clients, even though you may be able to roll them out or whatever. If you find them, that field can't be certified. So now was 5000 lines can't get to chill it. Or if you want to do a seed health test. Normally in the in the PCR arena, you need 1000 or 3000 or more scenes to run a PCR test. Well, one a session may be the seeds that are on your corn, you may have 300 seeds. So you're forced them to do it like a composite seed health test, where you have to develop a sample that contains at least 1000 or 2000 seeds. But that may represent again, hundreds and hundreds of different breeding lines. If you get a positive with PCR test, all of it you don't know which session is causing the problem. So they're all lost in a breeding program. This is why it's so important. This is where we really need some research to help us out here. Again, drifting to another area that we're very interested in. And also funding through a consortium is trying now to develop a micro assay for these kinds of viruses environments, where in this case, we're leveraging some research has been done by some cancer scientists who've been able to find a way to take micro tumor cells, that very, very small numbers of micro tumor cells and basically stick them on a glass plate so that they can challenge chemotherapeutic agents to him to see which agents may have show promise. And now we borrowed that technology through a group at University of Oregon Irvine, to take tomato plant cells, take the cell walls off and take the protoplasts and glue them on these last plates using the technology that was developed through medicine and see if we can develop a microarray assay. So if you have a seed lot the test positive they can an extract out very simply challenge it to these proto class and you might be able to get an answering in a day or two versus six to eight weeks, which is what a A typical biological assay may take you. And this may be even more precise as well. So there's just a lot of moving parts. But as the as the various countries in the world building molecular methods, it's poses problems like this. One more problem, I'll talk about what molecular technology is, there may be five or eight different methods for the same pest. If we look at tomato brown Rubio's fruit virus, a number of PCR methodologies that have moved differences in the primer sets or whatever are being used, what may give you a positive result, using one method may not give you the same result using another, we may be certifying sheet in the US based on the method we're using. But if the receiving country is using a different method and wants to retest, they may get a different result. We have a lot of efforts going around now to try to do international validation, ring testing and comparison, science and so forth, in order to try to standardize this kind of technology for these purposes. And that's where it really gets difficult as well as expensive for the industry. If you're out there in the pathology world and you're interested in molecular methods, there's a lot to do if you're a field pathologist, we have a shortage of epidemiology based scientists out there field pathologists who could actually go out and cover the difference between one type of bacterial pathogen versus a close relative, or how do you determine which ones are st transmitted? Which ones aren't all these different things are so incredibly important, but to our industry?

Speaker 1  26:40  
Jim: Yeah, it sounds as those seed pathology and certainly international trade of seed is incredibly complex with biological questions, obviously, technical questions, regulatory questions. And I want to pick up with a thread of you just mentioned the really the next generation of folks, it seems that there is a real need for well trained professionals working in the seat pathology space. What advice do you have for professionals, for students that are maybe interested in playing pathology, but they really want to work in seat pathology? What resources are out there for their training and professional development?

Speaker 2  27:21  
Ric: Very interesting question. Back when I was in college, you know, back in the old days, ancient days, ancient history, universe, California, Davis, where I went had a Department of Plant Pathology. And many land grant universities had departments of plant pathology departments of entomology. And there's been so much consolidation going on this trend more toward molecular science in general, that the opportunities for training in seat pathology are now few and far between Iowa State University, as I understand it, is the only university that actually has a seat pathology curriculum anymore. Number of universities will teach courses here, and they're in C pathology, per se, are some aspects of C pathology. But there are very few programs dedicated towards C pathology, and even plant pathology, for that matter. In terms of resources, you know, APS American PhotoPass, society is working hard to try to fill this gap industry is working hard to fill this gap. Often what the industry does, is they'll hire promising scientists who may not be specifically trained in an area of interest to a company, they'll bring them on and provide them that indoctrination. They'll provide extra educational opportunities within the company. Even do that I know some companies that are putting on their own classes for their own people as an example. APs are really looking into some virtual opportunities, virtual classes, as I say opportunities in that area. I'm actually involved in working with them to put together what we call a C pathology 101 virtual class. There'll be a 12 week class, one major lecture a week to go through various aspects of seed pathology that brings in some of the things I've been talking about international issues, photocentre issues and these kinds of things. But also looking at seed production practices, and how they can be actually manipulated to manage seed pathogens and these kinds of things. So it's very important. Some campuses universe California Davis is another good example of a college, a university that provides virtual classes that are related. And when you get into plant breeding in some of these areas, they'll bring in pathology, pathological aspects and so forth. Look for internships, a number of companies provide interns in their organizations. In our industry now we've we have a relatively new foundation called the seed Science Foundation, which is a foundation that supports both research and educational aspects of seeds of theology. I'm Long other areas of science. And we have websites for these things. And it's easy to find out where these things are, for example, asked is also having a leadership conference in Sacramento this June. And I know a number of companies are supporting, bringing students in to actually attend this conference and become exposed to what goes on in the seat industry. But also a provides opportunities for students to interact with company personnel that are going to be at these meetings as well. Lots of international opportunities. We have a lot of companies in our association, that are multinational. So given scientist is interested in doing some international work for breeding programs, for example, or whatever. There's all kinds of opportunities in the industry as well, I would say some very exciting opportunities.

Speaker 1  30:50  
Jim: The really great list of resources, I will include links to some of the resources that Rick just mentioned, that plan topia podcast.org, the landing page for this particular episode. So Ric, thank you so much for being with us on playing topia to talk about seek authority and international trade. I've learned a lot. 

Unknown Speaker  31:12  
Ric: Well, thank you. I hope I didn't ramble too much.

Speaker 1  31:14  
Jim: Not at all. It's a fascinating field of study. We just heard from Dr. Richard Dunkle. Ric is the Senior Director of seed health and trade for the American Seed Trade Association. And I'm Jim Bradeen the host of Plantopia podcast. Thanks so much for listening and we will talk again soon.

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