Andrea Parish, the owner and founder of Nose Knows Scouting, trained her canine partners in detecting potato virus Y and bacterial ring rot. Her Labradors can positively identify infected spuds just 48 hours after inoculation.

“We can run 40 acres of crops in 20 minutes,” Parish said, cited by Idaho State Journal. She explained that her dogs can key in on an infected one-inch plant from 80 feet away under ideal conditions.

She instructed a black Labrador retriever named Zora and a yellow Lab named Dudley in PVY detection. PVY, spread by aphids, hurts yields and tuber quality and expands in fields with each subsequent generation of seed planting. Raya, a Vizsla-Lab mix, is trained in bacterial ring rot detection. Ring rot is highly contagious and infects tubers through wounds. It can overwinter in infected volunteer potatoes or survive for several years as dried slime on equipment and surfaces.

Her four-legged sniffing partners will run through the ventilation tubes, called the plenum, beneath seed potatoes in storage and sniff through the holes above for infected tubers. Growers typically take samples from areas of the pile where the dogs find infection to be further scrutinized. Other growers hire Parish to scout fields with volunteer potatoes just after they emerge, seeking to get rid of any infected plants that could carry PVY into a new crop.

Parish is considering adding powdery scab, potato wart, and harmful nematodes to her dogs’ list of targeted pests and pathogens. She hopes to also train additional dogs and handlers to launch new Nose Knows Scouting teams throughout the country.