He Helps to Eradicate Deadly Plant Viruses--Thanks to the Strains of Mother Nature

The local grocery clerks all know Rosario Provvidenti. He’s the guy who buys the worst looking cucumbers and lettuce on the shelf.

The agricultural research community knows him too. He’s one of the top plant virologists in the world. He has helped conquer the deadly viruses that afflict all kinds of vegetables, making them grotesquely wither on the vine.

“Sometimes I can find a virus that’s not supposed to be in this country, right here in Geneva,” Provvidenti said in a heavy Italian accent. “Nobody else knows except me.”

Seeks Resistant Genes

When he has identified the virus, he looks for other strains that are resistant to it, blending the resistant genes with the succulent ones.

Governments seek his help in figuring out what is killing crops in their countries. He has cured papayas for Hawaii, cucumbers for Brazil and Chinese cabbage for China.

His work results in perfect pea pods and kink-free zucchini and saves farmers from acres of deformed plants and consumers from shabby produce in the supermarket.

“Mother Nature has provided the resistance. It’s rare, but it’s there,” the 64-year-old Provvidenti said in an interview in his office, dotted with gourds and melons, at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station.

So, he often returns to the ancient origin of a particular type of vegetable or fruit hoping to find a long-lost relative that will be able to ward off a modern-day disease.

Battles Time, Science

Provvidenti searches for cures in obscure places--isolated forests in China, fields of weeds in Turkey or in technical publications from Zimbabwe--battling time and the onset of biotechnology that will wipe out the worthless plants he finds so valuable.

For watermelons, he looks in Zimbabwe. For squash, he looks in Central America. For cucumbers, he looks in China. And, for lettuce, he looks in Turkey or Greece.

Once, in a remote part of China, hundreds of villagers surrounded him. They had never seen a white man before.

“I just started shaking hands with them,” Provvidenti said, but he had to stop. There were too many hands, and the guide got upset at the delay.

Once in Turkey, Provvidenti found himself in a coffeehouse holding up handfuls of weeds and asking farmers if they had any in their fields.

“I heard one farmer ask, ‘Why do these Americans want our weeds?’ and another say, ‘Well, they have everything else,’ ” Provvidenti said.

Has Foreign Sources

Sometimes he just looks in professional journals from other countries and then asks a researcher to mail him seeds.

Provvidenti came to Geneva 32 years ago from his native Italy, where he received a doctorate of science from the University of Palermo. He was honored last year by the Northeast Division of the American Phytopathological Society for his three decades of research.