So what are some of the services that you've been involved with the disease clinic that maybe help some of our producers?

Thanks, Dave.

So yeah, as you mentioned, we are the plant diagnostic clinic.

We're based on the St. Paul campus, University of Minnesota.

We essentially work on all types of plants.

except for turfgrass.

Turfgrass is kind of a specialty diagnostic service.

yes what prevalence of white mold are we getting samples it's a dry year obviously in a lot of places not always but

Um, can you walk us through what's actually happening inside a hosta leaf when it's infected with HVX?

Yeah, so it's a pr- it's a fairly similar process to what happens when we are infected with a virus.

You know, viruses are, are tech- not technically living organisms.

They, um, essentially are pieces of genetic material, either DNA or RNA, with a, uh, protein coat.

Sometimes they also have a sort of envelope around them, sometimes not.

And, um, they can't do anything outside of their host.

They're totally dormant, right? Um, but once they get into a host that they can infect, they're able to more or less get inside the host cell and they trick the host cells into basically using that genetic information that they're introducing into the cell to, um, basically create more viral particles, right? So they're, um, kind of kidnapping the host cell and, um, holding it hostage more or less.

How exactly does the disease spread within the plant, then?