PPO > Sudden Oak Death Research and Education Program > Monitoring > The “Bottle O’ Bait” (BOB) method for detecting P. ramorum in water > BOB Photos

BOB Photos

On the left is a forested riverbank with four male mallard ducks facing each other. On the right is a smooth river surface and a dense conifer forest can be seen on the other side of the river.
Sammamish River in Bothell. This is a fairly slow moving river that gets water inputs from residential, agricultural, and commercially developed areas.
A man in a yellow jacket stands in the water, holding a yellow pole with several bait bags hanging from it.
Fishing for bait bag at site 13. A pole is useful when bait bags get carried away by the current.
a man in a blue hat standing in a ditch with flowing water and holding a Nalgene with the top off. Squatting in front of him a student in a white jacket holds a water bag. A man in a yellow jacket faces them.
Collecting water at site 13A ditch
Barely visible are trees close to the camera. A small stream flows from the middle of the frame down to the left. A green lawn can be seen through the trees.
Woodin Creek – site 21 (it was getting dark)
A male standing by the open back of a brown truck. He is pouring water from a bag into open nalgene containers with their lids next to them.
Preparing water samples for BOB and filtering
A black lab bench with equipment, petri dishes, white plastic flasks with tubes attached, and nalgenes labeled with white tags.
Filtration apparatus in lab
A man in a blue cap pours water out of a Nalgene into a white water bag.
Collecting water at site 7. Water samples are collected in 100 ml aliquots and mixed, rather than collecting the entire 1L at once. This method works better in cases where inoculum density is low.
A chainlink fence on the right next to a ditch with water flowing. Either side of the ditch has brown grass.
Ditch at site 13A – industrial site
A man in a white coat squats by the side of a fast-moving creek, apparently pouring something with his left hand. A man in a blue coat stoops over next to him, holding something out of sight behind the other man's torso.
Little Bear Creek – site 12. This creek was swollen from recent rainfall.
A man in a blue jacket stands in brown water with trees growing in it. He holds in his hands a bait bag with its rope attached and dangling down.
Collecting leaves from bait bag at Gig Harbor site
A Nalgene with its lid off sits on the back gate of a truck. its lid is sitting next to it, containing several small heart-shaped pieces of leaf. Above the nalgene is a sandwich-size ziploc bag with a white paper towel.
BOB setup. A whole Rhododendron leaf (not shown) is also added to the bottle containing 1L stream water and 20 small leaf baits. These baits are incubated in stream water and then plated onto Phytophthora selective media.
A man in a black and red jacket stands by a black lab bench next to the filtration bottle, using a pair of tweezers to place the round filter from the bottle onto a petri dish.
Culturing filter on selective media

WSU Puyallup Research & Extension Center
2606 West Pioneer, Puyallup, WA, 98371-4998 USA
Last updated 9/24/2025