Millers seek out better options for controlling plant diseases

By DAVE WILKINS

Capital Press

RUPERT, Idaho -- When Terry Miller was a young professor at Ohio State University, his father developed health problems and asked if he would consider coming back to work on the family farm.

Miller resigned his post in plant pathology in 1973 and moved back home to Idaho, even though it meant giving up a job at one of the nation's top land-grant universities.

He's had no regrets.

"It turned out to be a great place to raise our children," he said.

Soon after returning, Miller got into agricultural consulting and gradually started doing contract ag research on the family farm northeast of Rupert, Idaho.

His first client was the University of California-Berkeley, where he had done post-doctorate work.

"As the business grew, I gave up farming and just did research," he said.

His kids grew up picking rocks, moving irrigation lines and working research plots.

In 2007, Miller lured his son Jeff away from a position as a University of Idaho Extension plant pathologist to join him at Miller Research.

Jeff was up for tenure, but he too gave up a secure job at a land-grant institution to return home.

"I came back a few years ago and haven't regretted it once," Jeff Miller said.

The Millers conduct about 60 to 80 different studies each year. Most involve potatoes, but they've also conducted research on sugar beets, alfalfa, clover, corn and small grains.

Their client list includes most major agri-chemical companies including BASF, Bayer, Syngenta, FMC and DuPont. They also do studies for the Idaho Potato Commission and participate in cooperative research projects with the University of Idaho.

The Millers conduct both efficacy and residue studies. In doing so, they try to determine how well a particular pesticide works and how much of it remains on the food that ends up on consumers' dinner plates.

Recently they've been trying to identify more effective fungicide treatments.

Fungicides that once were highly effective against diseases such as early blight and white mold have lost much of their punch because farmers have used them too much.

"Because these products were so effective and relatively inexpensive, people just used them over and over," Jeff Miller said.

With funding from the potato commission, the Millers can look at a variety of treatments using a combination of fungicides from different companies.

Whenever possible, they try to identify treatment programs that are less expensive but more effective than what growers have been using. As former farmers, they know growers are under pressure to reduce costs.

"If we can give growers a program that will control early blight, late blight and white mold -- and do a good job with all of them -- then you aren't targeting each particular disease with a different fungicide," Terry Miller said.

"We try to give growers options to stretch the dollars they have for investing in disease control," he said.

Most of the 1,000-acre family farm is leased to neighbors for commercial production. While some studies are conducted in cooperation with the lessees, most are conducted on dedicated plots. Only one study was conducted off-site last year.

"Here (on the farm) we have complete control over everything that goes on," Jeff Miller said.

Their clients all know that they strive for objective, unbiased research, the Millers said.

"We kind of pride ourselves on taking a Consumer Reports type of approach," Jeff Miller said.

Terry Miller

Age: 65

Family: Married, six children

Education: Doctorate and master's degrees in plant pathology, Utah State University; bachelor's degree in botany, USU; post-doctorate work, University of California-Berkeley.

Jeff Miller

Age: 39

Family: Married, four sons

Education: Doctorate and master's degrees in plant pathology, Washington State University; bachelor's degree in botany, Brigham Young University.