Andrea Parish's dogs save US potato farmers big money by quickly detecting serious potato diseases by smell. Animals specialize in detecting virus Y and bacterial ring rot.
As John O'Connell reports in a news article for the Idaho State Journal, Parish Labradors can accurately identify infected tubers as little as 48 hours after infection. Parish, a dog owner and founder of Nose Knows Scouting, has been working in potato stores and fields from Washington to Maine since opening her business in 2019. She was also hired to work on several government seed potato certification programs.
Andrea trained two dogs, a black Labrador Retriever named Zora and a yellow Labrador named Dudley, to detect PVY, and they are also able to detect bacterial ring rot.
Parish says the list of diseases and pests her dogs can smell will be expanded.