Ph.D. Plant Pathology, The Pennsylvania State University
M.S. Plant Pathology, The Pennsylvania State University
B.S. Horticulture, The Pennsylvania State University

My extension/research program focuses on identifying and addressing the disease management needs of the Pennsylvania vegetable growing industry as well as developing integrated vegetable crop management educational programming that supports the growers and ag service personnel in the state.

Currently, I am part of a 3-year collaborative NE-SARE Professional Development funded project to train ag service personnel and interested growers in the “Diagnosis, Visual Assessment and Management of Plant-Parasitic Nematodes of Vegetables and Small Fruit in the Northeast.” To-date, five day-long workshops have been conducted in New York,
Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Vermont (previous workshop announcement). We are in the process of organizing 3 to 4 workshops for fall 2008 in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maine and an additional 1 or 2 for spring 2009. Check back for further information on dates and locations.

Additional projects include involvement with the cucurbit downy mildew ipm PIPE (Pest Information and Platform for Education and Extension) project led by Dr. Gerald Holmes at North Carolina State (http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/pp/cucurbit/) and the dissemination of tomato disease forecasting information to the Pennsylvania tomato growers.

Idowu, O.J., H.M. van Es, G.S. Abawi, D.W. Wolfe, J.I. Ball, B.K. Gugino, B.N. Moebius, R.R. Schindelbeck, and A.V. Biligi. 2008. Farmer-oriented assessment of soil quality using field, laboratory, and VNIR spectroscopy methods. Plant and Soil (in press).

Schindelbeck, R.R., H.M. van Es, G.S. Abawi, D.W. Wolfe, T.L. Whitlow, B.K. Gugino, O.J. Idowu, and B.N. Moebius. 2008. Integrated assessment of soil quality for landscape and urban management. Landscape and Urban Planning (in press).

Gugino, B.K., J.W. Ludwig, and G.S. Abawi. 2008. An on-farm bioassay for assessing Meloidogyne hapla infestations as a decision management tool. Crop Protection 27:785-791.

Gugino, B.K., G.S. Abawi, P.J. Chen, J.E. Carroll, and T.L. Widmer. 2007. An IPM program for managing fungal leaf blight diseases of carrot in New York. Plant Disease 91:59-65.

Gugino, B.K., G.S. Abawi, P. Chen, J.E. Carroll, and T.L. Widmer. 2007. Field evaluation of carrot cultivars for susceptibility to fungal leaf blight diseases in New York . Crop Protection 26:709-714.

Gugino, B.K., G.S. Abawi, and J.W. Ludwig. 2006. Damage and management of root-knot nematode on carrot in New York. Journal of Nematology 38(4):483-490.

Selected Extension Publications:

Gugino, B.K., O.J. Idowu, R.R. Schindelbeck, H.M. van Es, D.W. Wolfe, J.E. Thies, and G.S. Abawi. 2007. Cornell Soil Health Assessment Training Manual Edition 1.2.1, Cornell University , Geneva , NY. 60 pp. (download available at http://soilhealth.cals.cornell.edu ).

Gugino, B.K., J. Carroll, J. Chen, J. Ludwig and G.S. Abawi. 2004. Carrot leaf blight disease and their management in New York. Cornell Cooperative Extension IPM Factsheet. (download available at http://www.nysipm.cornell.edu/factsheets/vegetables/misc/clb.pdf).

Bioassay protocols for the on-farm assessing soil infestation levels of the Northern Root-knot and Lesion nematodes:

How-to soil sample for nematode infestation assessment

How-to instructions for the on-farm assessment of lesion nematode soil infestation levels

How-to instructions for the on-farm assessment of root-knot nematode soil infestation levels using a lettuce bioassay