Poison Ivy – An Unexpected Discovery

Poison Ivy – Control

ambience: Dawn Chorus
Jelesko: We certainly think that taking this naturally occurring fungus and making some sort of formulation of it that people can apply to their yards or campgrounds or managed landscapes in order to try and control this plant is, certainly, a very worthwhile activity.

An unexpected discovery may lead to a new way of controlling Poison Ivy. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Jelesko: In our very earliest studies, we were just trying to get poison ivy seeds to germinate, and just putting the seeds on a media that should be very permissive for them to germinate, we found that they did not germinate.

When plant Pathologist John Jelesko tried without success to grow Poison Ivy in his lab, he discovered that a fungus was preventing the seeds from germinating.

Jelesko: We’re interested in gaining a better understanding of what this fungus is normally doing in the plant, but we’re also interested in seeing if it can be developed as a means of controlling poison ivy. If a little bit of the fungus naturally growing on the plant is beneficial, it may be – and we know this in other systems – that if you have too much of the fungus, it’s now unhealthy, which would cause damage to the plant and have dying poison ivy vines, which most humans would view as being a good thing if they’re located in their backyard.
One possibility would be to grow the fungus in liquid culture and then put that in some sort of spray formulation that you could just spray on leaves. This is a naturally occurring fungus here in the United States. It’s not a introduced species.

Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by Virginia Tech, inventing the future through a hands-on approach to education and research.

Poison Ivy - An Unexpected Discovery

A new way of controlling Poison Ivy?
Air Date:11/19/2021
Scientist:
Transcript:

Poison Ivy – Control ambience: Dawn Chorus Jelesko: We certainly think that taking this naturally occurring fungus and making some sort of formulation of it that people can apply to their yards or campgrounds or managed landscapes in order to try and control this plant is, certainly, a very worthwhile activity. An unexpected discovery may lead to a new way of controlling Poison Ivy. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet. Jelesko: In our very earliest studies, we were just trying to get poison ivy seeds to germinate, and just putting the seeds on a media that should be very permissive for them to germinate, we found that they did not germinate. When plant Pathologist John Jelesko tried without success to grow Poison Ivy in his lab, he discovered that a fungus was preventing the seeds from germinating. Jelesko: We're interested in gaining a better understanding of what this fungus is normally doing in the plant, but we're also interested in seeing if it can be developed as a means of controlling poison ivy. If a little bit of the fungus naturally growing on the plant is beneficial, it may be – and we know this in other systems – that if you have too much of the fungus, it's now unhealthy, which would cause damage to the plant and have dying poison ivy vines, which most humans would view as being a good thing if they're located in their backyard. One possibility would be to grow the fungus in liquid culture and then put that in some sort of spray formulation that you could just spray on leaves. This is a naturally occurring fungus here in the United States. It's not a introduced species. Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by Virginia Tech, inventing the future through a hands-on approach to education and research.