Ivette
Acuña

Biography

Ivette Acuña B. is Agricultural Engineer from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Doctor of Philosophy in Plan Pathology from Montana State University, Bozeman, USA.  She has worked as a researcher in plant pathology since 1988 at the Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias (INIA), Chile. She has specialized in the integrated management of crop diseases, with emphasis on potato. During his professional career, she has focused on epidemiological studies and their applicability for the development and implementation of decision-support technologies that are easily accessible to all types of producers and that reduce the environmental impact and losses caused by sanitary problems. He has led more than 45 projects related to potato diseases, integrated management, early warning systems and risk platforms, among others. Between them, the platform on potato diseases (https//enfermedadespapa.inia.cl) and the development and validation of an early warning system for late blight in Chile (https://tizon.inia.cl), which today has more than 6700 registered users in Chile, many of which are part of small-scale agriculture. The system has been shown to reduce by more than 50% the applications of agrochemicals needed to control the disease, thus reducing the environmental impact and the safety of people. Today she is working with women in Chiloe to implement the system in their crop management and the use of GAP.

Ivette is an active member of 4 societies and 3 national and international scientific networks related to potato health. Today she is the coordinator of the Latin American Network of cooperation for the study of late blight of Solanaceae (Latin blight) and in charge of the thematic area of Plant Protection of the Latin American Potato Association (ALAP) and is the president of the Chilean Potato Association, ACHIPA.

 Development of technological innovations

Sanitary risk platform. Acuña, I.; Sandoval, C. and Sepúlveda, C. 2021. Potato diseases: Platform for sanitary risk assessment. Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias INIA, Chile.

http://enfermedadespapa.inia.clEarly warning system for integrated management of potato late blight with weather forecasting and data interpolation. http://tizon.inia.cl. Bravo, R., Acuña I, Gatica J. 2018.

System for risk analysis and preventive management of potato golden nematode. http://www.inia.cl/nematododorado . Muñoz, M.; Acuña, I.; Tejeda, P.; Bravo, R.; France, R.; Orena, S., C. Folch. 2017.

Interactive potato cultivation manual. http://manualinia.papachile.cl . Acuña, I.; Muñoz, M.; Sandaña, P.; Orena, S.; Bravo, R.; Kalazich, J.; Tejeda, P.; Castro M.P., and C. Sandoval. 2015.

Early warning system for potato early blight management. http://alternaria.inia.cl . Acuña, I. R. Bravo, C. Sandoval, J. Gatica.

Aphid Flight Alert System. http://pulgon.inia.cl . Acuña, I. R. Bravo, C. Sandoval, J. Gatica. 2014.

Early warning system for integrated management of potato late blight. http://tizon.inia.cl . Acuña, I., R. Bravo. 2007 y 2010.

 Main scientific publications, monographs and books in recent years.

• Kholoud A; Rivera V.; Acuña I.; Secor G.; N. Gudmestad. Diversity of Genetic and Vegetative Compatibility Group of Colletotrichum coccodes Isolates from Chile Using Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism Markers. J. Fungi 2024, Volume 10, Issue 3, 200 http://jof-2850547
• Acuña B., Ivette y Martínez G., Ingrid (eds.). 2023. Libro de Resúmenes ALAP 2023 XXIX Congreso Latinoamericano de la Papa El Reencuentro: una mirada hacia la sustentabilidad y al cambio climático (Book of Abstracts ALAP 2023 XXIX Latin American Potato Congress The Re-encounter: a look towards sustainability and climate change). Osorno, Chile: Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias. Serie Actas - Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias N° 62. Disponible en: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14001/69032
• Serge Savary and Global Plant Health Assessment Project (GPHA). 2023. A Global Assessment of the State of Plant Health. Plant Disease, APS: 1-17 pp. https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-01-23-0166-FE.
• Garret, Karen; Andrade-Piedra, Jorge; Kreuze, Jan; Acuña, Ivette; Laetitia Willocquet; Manjari Singh; Sonam Sah; Federica Bove; Serge Savary; Jonathan Yuen. 2022. Root, tubers, bananas and plantains: Potato in South America. (978-91-988233-0-1)
• Rondon, S., C.Castillo, H. Cuesta, P. Navarro, I. Acuña, Chapter 16 - Latin America potato production: pests and foes, Editor(s): Andrei Alyokhin, Silvia I. Rondon, Yulin Gao, Insect Pests of Potato (Second Edition), Academic Press, 2022, Pages 317-330, ISBN 9780128212370, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-821237-0.00019-6. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128212370000196)
• Martínez I, Muñoz M, Acuña I. and Uribe M (2021) Evaluating the Drought Tolerance of Seven Potato Varieties on Volcanic Ash Soils in a Medium-Term Trial. Plant Sci. 12:693060. Doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.693060.
• Padilla, N., P. Luengo, S. Mancilla, A. Maurin, C. Torres, P. Ruiz, A. France, Acuña and H. Urrutia. 2021. Antagonistic activity of endophytic actinobacteria from native potato (Solanum tuberosum subsp. tuberosum L.) against Pectobacterium carotovorum subsp. carotovorum and Pectobacterium atrosepticum. BMC Microbiology 21:335. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12866-021-02393-x
• Van der Wolf, J.; Acuña, S. De Boer, M. Brurberg, G. Cahill, A. Charkowski, T. Davey, M. Dees, Y. Degefu, B. Dupuis, J. Elphinstone, J. Fan, T. Fleming, N. Geryeli, V. Gorshkov, V. Hélias, Y. le Hingrat, S. Johnson, A. Keiser, I. Kellenberger, X.Li, E. Lojkowska, R. Martin, J. Perminow, O. Petrova, S. Rossmann, S. Schaerer, L. Tsror, J. van der Waals, P. de Werra, I. Yedidia. 2021. Soft rot diseases around the world. In: Van Gijsegem, F.; J. Van der Wolf; I. Toth (Eds.) Plant Diseases Caused by Dickeya and Pectobacterium Species.339 p. Springer International Publishing.10.1007/978-3-030-61459-1.
• Ristaino, J. B., Cooke, D. E. L., Acuña, I., and Muñoz, M. 2020. The threat of late blight to global food security. Pages 101-132 in: Emerging Plant Diseases and Global Food Security. J. B. Ristaino and A. Records, eds. American Phytopathological Society, St. Paul, MN.
• Acuña, I. y Bravo, R. 2019. Tizón tardío de la papa: Estrategias de manejo integrado con alertas temprana. (Potato late blight: Integrated management strategies with early warning). Boletín INIA N° 399. 136 pp. ISSN 0717-4829.

 Research and transfer projects as Director or alternate director in the last years.

Integrated system for the preventive control of potato powdery scab (Spongospora subterranea) through water efficiency and early detection. PYT-2022-0248

Development and validation of a prototype biological product for preventive control of Bacterial Wilt and Brown Rot in potato (Solanum tuberosum). Universidad de Concepción- Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias INIA. FONDEF IDeA 2019 ID19I10382. 2020-2023.

Implementation of an early warning system for a sustainable preventive management of potato late blight (Phytophthora infestans), as an adaptation measure against climate change variability in Latin America. Funded by IDB/Fontagro 2017 ATN/RF-16678-RG. 2018-2023.

Integrated disease management in potato crop. Funded Private, chemical companies. 2000-2025.

Development of an integrated management package for bacteria in potato crop, based on a method of quantification of latent infection potential and its expression in the field, as a measure of adaptation to health risk in the face of climate change. Funded by FIA PYT - 2017 - 0204. 2017-2021.

Development of a technological innovation that allows the sustainable management of emerging diseases caused by viruses in the potato crop in Chile: Potato mop top virus (PMTV) and necrotic races of Potato virus Y (PVY), which threaten the production of seed potato tuber in Chile. Funded by FIA PYT-2016-0096. 2016-2019.

Value addition to the late blight warning system incorporating weather forecasting and spatial interpolation of data. Funded by FIA PYT- 2015-0094. 2015-2017.

Development of a risk level platform as a decision support tool based on inoculum quantification for soil diseases in potato crop. Funded by FIA. 2014-2017.

Platform for risk analysis and integrated preventive management of the golden nematode, to maintain and improve the competitiveness of the potato crop in southern Chile. Funded by INNOVA CORFO. 2014-2017.

Projects