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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Frederick, Maryland » Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #428194
Research Project: Integrative Genomic and Biological Approaches to Detect and Manage Emerging Foreign Fungal and Oomycete Plant Pathogens

Location: Foreign Disease-Weed Science Research

Title: Economic, environmental, and societal impacts of the Boxwood Blight Insight Group research

Author
item HALL, CHARLES - Texas A&M University
item HONG, CHUANXUE - Virginia Tech
item DAUGHTREY, MARGERY - Cornell University
item Luster, Douglas

Submitted to: PhytoFrontiers
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/4/2025
Publication Date: 4/25/2026
Citation: Hall, C.R., Hong, C., Daughtrey, M.L., Luster, D.G. 2026. Economic, environmental, and societal impacts of the Boxwood Blight Insight Group research. PhytoFrontiers. https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTOFR-08-25-0083-FI.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTOFR-08-25-0083-FI

Interpretive Summary: Not required for Review article

Technical Abstract: The Boxwood Blight Insight Group (BBIG) is a team of scientists that have worked together in partnership with industry stakeholders and international collaborators over the last 5 years on an USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant project that was part of the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) . This trans-disciplinary team and its partners aimed to safeguard boxwood—the nation’s #1 evergreen ornamental shrub crop—from boxwood blight disease, thus saving an iconic plant that has been featured in American landscapes since 1653. This analysis of economic contributions of the project positions boxwood blight as both a plant-health crisis and a macro-economic threat, and summarizes how BBIG’s trans-disciplinary method has already converted fundamental discoveries—genome-informed diagnostics, risk-forecast apps, cultivar resistance matrices, microbiome engineering and sanitation protocols—into measurable producer profits, avoiding externalities and public-good spillovers. The analysis articulates why an integrated economic treatment is indispensable: without credible valuation the horticulture sector cannot price risk, growers and other investors cannot rank research and development (R&D) investments, and policymakers cannot justify regulatory or cost-share programs that hasten technology uptake. We demonstrate that BBIG’s science does more than keep an iconic green industry shrub alive—it delivers a repeatable template for embedding rigorous economics in specialty-crop disease research and for quantifying the full return on public R&D investment.