STAFF SPOTLIGHT SERIES
This is an interview between Jennifer Flynn, Plant Diagnostician in the UMN Plant Disease Clinic and National Plant Disease Network, and Annie Harvieux (Communicator).
AH: How do your University role and your role as a diagnostician for the National Plant Disease Network intersect?
JF: My interaction with the National Plant Disease Network [NPDN] is so valuable for me as a diagnostician because of the way it connects University plant diagnostic labs, State Departments of Agriculture, private labs, and others doing similar work. The NPDN makes it so much easier to know diagnosticians across the country, and lets me know who to reach out to for different kinds of questions, listservs, Zoom meetings to discuss problem cases, in-person meetings, educational opportunities, webinars–we get a LOT of professional development and collaboration from being part of the NPDN.
AH: How did you develop your plant diagnosis skills, and what’s your career background?
JF: I did many odd jobs that ended up being good background for what I do now. I worked in a garden center, golf course maintenance, landscaping, and as a professional gardener. All these “odd jobs” have helped me better understand the needs of our PDC clients. I also worked retail and in a doctor’s office. Customer service experience is so valuable in a public-facing lab. I use all the experience from “miscellaneous” work as much as I use my degree in Plant Biology and my Master’s degree in Applied Plant Science. All the lawn mowing, and shrub trimming, plant watering, cashiering, etc. have proved valuable…nothing wasted.
Furthermore, my hobbies are mostly outdoor activities. That helps me remember what healthy plants look like. Outdoor hobbies also keep me in-tune with the abiotic stresses that plants are going through. My brain is hardwired to remember the extremes of temperature and precipitation…every growing season that started / ended early or late.
AH: What are your main goals in the role at the Plant Disease Clinic, both routine basis goals and long-term goals?
JF: Unlike research, there are not many long-term goals in this type of work. Samples come in, and it’s: assess the sample, do any needed tests, make the diagnosis and write the report. That takes up so much of our time!
Long-term goals are always trying to improve. Sometimes we have mastered something to the highest level it can be mastered and there is nothing more to it, but in dealing with nature you never stop learning. It’s being a career biologist, you never know everything and you’re never going to know everything! I learn from the samples, from customers, from seminars, and just keep striving to do the best I can with what comes at me.
AH: What does a day in the life of Jennifer Flynn look like in your busiest season?
JF: I usually barely get here on time [grins], everything I start to do gets interrupted by someone bringing a sample, and by 4:30 I don’t need to answer the phone anymore. Sometimes I get the most done between 4:30 pm and 6pm…or later. The best summary of the busy season– is my time cards have a lot of hours on them.
AH: And what kind of clients are you getting in your busy season?
JF: We have a lot of commercial customers, as well as homeowners. I think half the population of Minnesota probably lives within about an hour’s drive of the lab, and we get many hand-delivered samples. That contributes to the storefront mentality. We know our regular customers like old friends, on a first-name basis. If I ever leave, I will really miss some of them.
AH: What is a common misconception or misunderstanding about plant diagnostics?
JF: Diagnostics is very different from research. In terms of publications, there are occasional opportunities to write or contribute to a first report-type publication. However, pursuing “glamorous” big grants and publications is rarely on the to-do list at a diagnostic lab. The workload is unpredictable. I try not to make too many commitments, because one never really knows when the lab might get a deluge of samples.
Diagnostics is something one really has to like. For me, there is a pleasure figuring out what something is or what disease it has. Maybe diagnostics is an addiction as much as it is a career!
AH: In the past couple of years, what are trends you’ve noticed in pest or disease prevalence, in the North Central region [where UMN is located]?
JF: It gets harder and harder to generalize. I never worry about running out of things to do, it feels like there is always going to be something. I do NOT worry about running out of work.
One year, a huge percentage of the samples were bur oak blight, another year it’s sudden death syndrome of soybean, another year it’s Goss’s wilt. I’ve talked to older diagnosticians who told me, “When I finished school, I thought I knew about everything I was going to see in my career.” And then they started working and saw that that is not now it goes.
Weather has huge impacts on diseases, and the weather is so different every year. That it contributes to the samples that we get. My “favorite” weather extreme was the January 2019 polar vortex that went down to -29°F in the metro and -40°F up north. Much of the state had poor snow cover and deeply frozen soil. Conditions like that really stress trees, especially species with shallow roots. By summer, the PDC saw a big increase in requests for Verticillium testing in maples, ash, and magnolia.
Record rain, record drought! Record this or that. Plants are stressed, and stressed plants contribute to the demand for disease testing.
AH: I am assuming as climate change amplifies, the chaos will amplify as well?
JF: Yes. For example, with bur oak blight (BOB), people suspect climate change may have influenced that disease because of the trend of more spring rains. The disease may have been around for a long time, but it wasn’t very notable until the last 10-12 years. It was first confirmed in 2010 in Minnesota. In a rainy year, BOB can be very common. In a dry year, it might be almost non-existent.
Twelve years is not that much time and now we have this common disease that can potentially turn most of an oak tree’s foliage brown, and it’s not necessarily that sick and may turn out fine the next spring!
AH: Weird!
JF: It is weird.
AH: It seems like the need for plant diagnosticians is in no way dying off, and perhaps even amplifying. If a student or young professional is interested in plant diagnostics, how would you suggest they get involved and explore that path?
JF: Keep an open mind. Even though there are university NPDN labs all over the country, I’ve seen long periods of time where there have been few job openings in these labs. For plant diagnostics and plant pathology in general, I would stress to students that a plant pathology background could lead to careers in integrated pest management (IPM) and production horticulture / agriculture or Extension.
AH: And what are some good things to do and try as a younger, interested person?
JF: Along with normal classes in Plant Pathology, check with Brett Arenz about taking a special project class in the Plant Disease Clinic. For that class, a student comes to the PDC to work on diagnosing samples with supervision. Becca Hall [Outreach Coordinator] and two of our current grad students, Jake Botkin and Yeidymar Sierra Moya, all took that class.