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IPM CRSP > IPM CRSP Program Leader Wins Award

IPM CRSP Program Leader Wins Award

The American Phytopathological Society has announced that it has conferred its 2007 International Service Award to Dr. Naidu Rayapati for his outstanding contributions to plant pathology in countries around the world. Rayapati is Program Leader of the IPM CRSP project working on insect-transmitted viruses.

Rayapati is also a professor of plant pathology at Washington State University in Prosser, Washington. He is being recognized for work which focuses on strategies that may be used to combat insect-transmitted viruses around the world.

Dr. Naidu Rayapati

Rayapati’s principal research laid out the causes and distribution of the groundnut (peanut) rosette disease (GRD) virus. He also developed sustainable disease management strategies by building partnerships among a multidisciplinary team of scientists from ICRISAT, the United Kingdom, the United States, and national programs in sub-Saharan Africa with funding from DFID-CPP and the Peanut Collaborative Research Support Program (Peanut CRSP) of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

GRD, which causes an estimated annual loss of $156 million, severely impacts the food security of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.

For more on the announcement from APS and on Rayapati’s work, see: http://www.apsnet.org/members/awards/2007.asp
Click on “International Service Award.”