Award of Merit was presented to Margaret Tuttle McGrath, Associate Professor Emeritus, on 7 March 2024 during the annual meeting of the Northeast Division of the American Phytopathological Society (NED-APS). The purpose of this award is to honor division members who have made substantial contributions to plant pathology. Meg spent her career stationed at Cornell’s Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center in Riverhead, New York, where she had a successful applied research and extension program helping growers optimize management of diseases affecting vegetable crops and herbs within organic as well as conventional production systems. Research topics include investigating fungicide resistance in the cucurbit powdery and downy mildew pathogens, monitoring occurrence of diseases, and evaluating management practices for several diseases: fungicides, biopesticides and other organic fungicides, resistant varieties, cultural practices including reduced tillage and mustard biofumigation. Research findings and knowledge gained were shared through 9 book chapters, 55 scientific journal articles, 328 annual reports in Plant Disease Management Reports and its preceding journals, 110 abstracts for scientific meeting presentations, 41 invited scientific presentations, 516 extension/outreach presentations, 223 extension articles, and numerous weekly newsletter articles, plus extensive posting of information at https://blogs.cornell.edu/livegpath/ and https://www.vegetables.cornell.edu/pest-management/disease-factsheets/.
Meg has been a member of APS and NED-APS since 1984, and served both extensively. For APS, she served as Vice-chair and Chair of Pathogen Resistance, Plant Disease Detection, and Women in Plant Pathology Committees and was a member of several other committees. Meg was a Senior Editor for Plant Disease in 2004-2006. She was Editor for Biological and Cultural Tests for Control of Plant Diseases in 1997-2000, Associate Editor in 1996, and Editor for the Vegetable Section in 1992-1995 and 2001. For the NED-APS, she served on the NED-APS officer lineage from 2014 – 2018 (Secretary-Treasurer, Vice President, President, Immediate Past President), as the Councilor-Elect (2001-2003) and Councilor (2003-2006), and she served as Chair of the Symposium, Extension Plant Pathology and Graduate Student Award Committees.
Previous Cornell University plant pathology faculty members receiving this award include Gary Bergstrom (2022), Margery Daughtrey (2017), George Abawi (2009), and David Rosenberger (2005).