Evan Buckner

Evan Buckner

  • Ph.D. Student
  • Advised by: Dr. Paul Esker
211 Buckhout Laboratory
University Park, PA 16802

Education

  • B.Sc. Crop Sciences and Pest Management, University of Arkansas, 2021

Research Interests

Industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is a reemerging crop in the United States grown for its fiber, grain, and medicinal properties. In the hemp growing regions of the United States and Canada there have been emergence issues caused by soil-borne pathogens in the genera Pythium and Fusarium.

My research focuses on how soil-borne pathogens interact with each other and the host to cause differing levels of disease severity on hemp and using the novel microbe detection platform MiFi for identifying soil-borne pathogens and informing pre-plant disease risk assessment models. An additional component centers around Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Acceptable Pesticide Active Ingredients (PAAPAI) for control of Botrytis Bud Rot on hemp cultivars. This research plans to aid in the retention of small-scale and limited resource growers of color in Pennsylvania and northeast United States growing regions through providing plant disease management strategies for hemp.

Research Publications

Buckner, Evan and Rojas, Alejandro. (2021). Baseline Sensitivity to demethylation Inhibitor Fungicides in Cercosproa spp. and Corynespora spp. in Arkansas Soybeans. Discovery, Volume (22), pp. 9-13