Expertise:
Wheeler began working at the Lubbock Experiment Station in 1994
and is currently an Associate Professor. Her program emphasizes
soil-borne disease identification and management. The majority
of her research program has been directed towards cotton, though
there has been limited work also on potato, grape, and peanut.
Wheeler has been working on better management of seedling diseases
of cotton with an emphasis on developing cotton lines resistant
to Pythium ultimum, Rhizoctonia solani, and Thielaviopsis basicola.
She also works on developing resistance in cotton to Verticillium
wilt, bacterial blight, and root-knot nematode. The southern
root-knot nematode is a major limiting factor to cotton yields
in the High Plains of Texas. Management is almost entirely by
chemicals, however, producers generally do not apply sufficient
rates of chemical to maximize control of this pest. Variable
rate application (VRA) of aldicarb has been found to be more
cost-effective than single rate applications when the nematode
density is distributed across a number of treatment thresholds
and is an important limiting factor in the field. However, intensive
sampling is often necessary to utilize variable rate nematicide
applications, which then makes VRA unprofitable in most situations.
Remote sensing is currently being tested to determine if root-knot
nematode density can be estimated based on broad band, multispectral
reflectance from plants during the growing season. In addition
to the work with nematodes in precision agriculture, Wheeler
is currently working on testing field variability in soil moisture
as a predictor for diseases in peanuts, also for a precision
agriculture project. Wheeler is on the Texas A&M graduate faculty
in the Dept. of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, and also serves
as an adjunct professor at Texas Tech University in the Dept.
of Plant and Soil Science in Lubbock, Texas.
Professional
and Academic Training:
1990, PhD, Plant Pathology, North Carolina State University
1985, MS, Plant Pathology, Texas A&M University
1982, BS, Plant Pathology, Worcester Polytechnic Institute