Contact: Michael Sutphin
msutphin@vt.edu
540-231-6975
Virginia Tech

David Schmale's Air Force

Caption: Virginia Tech plant pathologist David Schmale and the Virginia Center for Autonomous Systems have retrofitted small aircraft with unique collection plates that open while the plane is in flight above potato fields at Virginia Tech's Kentland Farm to collect samples of P. infestans. Preparing an airplane at the farm are Benjamin Dingus, a mechanical engineering graduate student with the center, and Alicia Wood-Jones, laboratory specialist with the Department of Plant Pathology, Physiology, and Weed Science at Virginia Tech.

Credit: David Schmale

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