Gabriel Sacher

Gabe Sacher is a Ph.D student at Oregon State University in Dr. Jay Pscheidt’s lab. Gabe received a bachelor's of science in biology from Sonoma State University in 2017 where he worked with microbial fuel cells for the digestion of wine waste under Dr. Michael Cohen. He grew his love for ornamental plants and plant disease while working in a retail nursery and becoming a California Master Gardener. Gabe began working with boxwood blight in Dr. Jerry Weiland’s lab where he investigated the environmental conditions required for boxwood blight infection and disease progression.

Gabe is currently investigating the efficacy of the FRAC group 3 fungicide, flutriafol, as a soil applied fungicide against boxwood blight. Previous work in the Pscheidt lab suggests that full pesticide coverage of a tightly sheared boxwood plant is difficult to achieve even at high gallon per acre rates. Gabe hypothesizes that by applying flutriafol to the root zone of boxwood the fungicide will be translocated throughout the boxwood canopy in sufficient rates to provide a protective effect against boxwood blight, even in areas of the canopy that are hard to reach with traditional pesticide sprayers.