Feed the Future Global Biotech Potato Partnership

Dr. Phillip Wharton is currently associate professor of potato pathology at University of Idaho and has been a research/extension specialist since 2008. Dr. Wharton earned his doctorate in plant disease resistance in 1997 at the United Kingdom’s University of Reading. He spent the following two years as a post-doctoral researcher at Purdue University, where he investigated biochemical mechanisms of plant disease resistance in sorghum. In 1999, he moved to Michigan State University, where he studied the biology and epidemiology of diseases of tree and small fruit (cherries, blueberries, strawberries, and grapes) before concentrating his efforts in 2004 on late blight, Rhizoctonia, Fusarium dry rot and other diseases of potato. Dr. Wharton has worked on potato projects all over the world, including a project with the Idaho Potato Commission to help Idaho growers increase potato exports to Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and other Asian countries. Dr. Wharton currently has several international projects developing late blight resistant potatoes in Indonesia and Bangladesh and conducts research on disease forecasting, crop protection, host-pathogen interactions, post-harvest disease management of vegetable crops and fungicide resistance. He has published extensively in refereed journals, trade journals and popular press on various small fruit, sugar beet and potato disease issues.