On the bottom floor of Mumford Hall on MU’s campus, Peng Tian opens an email and five photos of a brown pine tree needle with black spots appear on the screen. Instantly, he knows the problem.
“This is a very typical symptom for one specific pine disease called Dothistroma disease,” he said.
Tian is the director of The University of Missouri Plant Diagnostic Clinic, which now accepts digital plant samples. That means, for a small fee, the public can send in photos of their plants and have them diagnosed or identified by an expert.
The clinic has existed since 1965 and serves home gardeners, farmers, agricultural companies and researchers. Usually, people send in physical samples and it costs at least $15.
“If I need to do any additional test, I will make a phone call to the client to say, ‘Hey, we need a more test to characterize your disease; are you willing to pay an extra fee for the additional test?’” he said.
But — as in the case with the diseased pine tree needle — that’s often unnecessary. So the lab created an online service where people can submit photos and descriptions of their plants instead of sending them in physically.
“It definitely allows us to have a timely diagnosis,” Tian said. “The turnaround time previously, if you add on the shipping time, it's around two weeks. But with this, it's just like one or two days, and people will get an answer.”
If he can't diagnose it through photo's, he'll still ask people to send in physical samples. But more often than not, the digital submission service saves shipping and storage costs, and the clinic charges $10.
“This is my vision — not to make profits, not to make as much as possible,” he said. "It is to serve the people, to extend the educational information to the public, to help them.”
Tian said offering disease diagnoses helps the environment, too. Without an expert to consult, sometimes gardeners or farmers are too keen to use chemicals to treat or prevent disease.
“I can let them know that you don't need to spray anything,” he said. “Sometimes you don't need to cut your tree, your tree will survive.”
An alternative service exists — apps that use artificial intelligence to diagnose plants. Tian said these are useful, particularly for plant identification.
“I would say 95% it's accurate,” he said. “However, if you go to plant disease, there's just so few data out there for plant disease and plant disease intensity, they vary so much from different stages of the disease development.”
Tian has been with the clinic for four years and said it has gotten busier each year. In 2024, it received 900 physical samples.
“I'm happy that many people love to contact me and trust my facility,” he said.
