Robert P. Larkin has been a Research Plant Pathologist for 20 years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture–Agricultural Research Service (USDA–ARS), New England Plant, Soil, and Water Laboratory, in Orono, Maine. He works primarily with potato and organic vegetable production systems. His primary areas of research are the biological and cultural control of soilborne diseases, disease-suppressive rotation crops, sustainable cropping systems, soil health, and soil microbial communities. Previously, Dr. Larkin was at the USDA¬–ARS, Biocontrol of Plant Diseases Laboratory, in Beltsville, Maryland, where he worked on the biological control of wilt diseases of vegetables. Dr. Larkin also did postdoctoral research on various aspects of soilborne diseases at the University of Missouri in Columbia and at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He received a BS degree in Environmental Sciences-Biology from Bradley University; an MS degree in Ecology from University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and a PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of Florida, Gainesville.
