For horticultural producers, plant diseases can be the bane of your existence. That’s why many turn to Kathy Grice for assistance. Working in plant pathology for the past 33 years, Kathy offers a wealth of knowledge and experience to help diagnose plant diseases as well as providing management options. With her career based in Far North Queensland a large portion of Kathy’s time has been working on solutions for Australian banana growers.

Kathy’s work is primarily in diagnostics. Banana samples sent to her lab in Mareeba vary from leaf and fruit disorders to corm and root diseases. The primary objective of Kathy’s work in diagnostics is to ensure exotic plant pathogens are not present in our local banana industry. The importance of her diagnostic work is best exemplified by her key role in the black Sigatoka response that resulted in the successful eradication of the disease in Far North Queensland in the early-mid 2000s. 

More recently, Kathy and colleague Peter Trevorrow have focussed their research on the post-harvest quality issue of Crown end rot. As part of this work they have  looked into ‘softer’ control options as an alternative to registered fungicides, with some biological products showing promising results.