Growth Spurts

Three new leaf lettuce breeding lines with resistance to corky root, a serious disease of lettuce, have been released by the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Corky root is caused by a bacterium called Sphingomonas suberifaciens which lives in the soil and attacks the plant’s roots, causing them to enlarge and develop [...]

Natural bacterial extracts — X. bovienii and P. luminescens (VS) bacterial compounds — offer peach and pecan growers a safe and effective alternative to chemical fungicides in treating diseases such as brown rot in peaches and pecan scab. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Byron, Georgia, developed these natural pesticides to control pecan and [...]

A new peanut variety (dubbed Tifguard) developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists may help farmers in their battle against two key peanut problems — the peanut root-knot nematode and the tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV).
While certain peanut varieties exhibit resistance to either the peanut root-knot nematode or the TSWV pathogen, Tifguard is the first [...]

Years ago, boll weevils bedeviled cotton growers until a successful large-area eradication program eliminated that problem for most U.S. producers. Now, stink bugs are pestering cotton growers, costing them about 3 percent of their crop each year.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Georgia have been testing the effectiveness of using a combination of trap crops [...]

Strawberry plants grown in compost-filled mesh tubes, or “socks,” have less chance of getting black root rot than plants grown directly in infested soils, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) study reveals.
No methyl bromide or any other soil fumigant was used in the study, since they have become too costly for many small growers and nonchemical [...]

Potting mixes custom-tailored to fight plant diseases can work much better than systemic fungicides.
In a test with begonias, scientists found that a mix of peat, compost and the beneficial fungus Trichoderma hamatum strain 382 reduced Botrytis gray mold, caused by the Botrytis cinerea fungus, better than the standard fungicide chlorothalonil did. Botrytis gray mold [...]

Cowpea plants can indirectly perceive attack from fall armyworms by detecting and responding to degradation products of their own tissues — the first time this ability has been observed in plants, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.
Previous studies have shown that plants have the ability to indirectly perceive pathogen attacks and protect themselves against [...]

The distribution of diaprepes root weevils (Diaprepes abbreviatus) is constrained by temperature, a key to predicting and limiting the spread of this pest.
Since its arrival in 1964, the diaprepes root weevil has been a major contributor to the decline of Florida’s citrus industry.  The pest’s ability to feed on more than 200 host plant species [...]

A newly discovered fungus — Isaria propawskii — shows promise as a biological control for whiteflies.
The unusually durable fungus that was first spotted on tiny insects feeding on eggplants in Texas by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist  Enrique Cabanillas.
Pesticides have been ineffective for controlling whiteflies because of a built-in natural resistance, the need for repeated [...]

Plant scientists in Nebraska are reporting the discovery of a previously unknown component in plants’ immune systems which reveals how plants and humans fend off diseases and how invaders stifle immunity. Microbiologist James Alfano and co-authors reported their findings in Nature, the international weekly journal of science.
The research focuses on a method of infection found [...]