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Tag: "blight" at biology news

Potato blight pathogenicity explained by genome plasticity

...s to adapt to their environments. The potato late blight pathogen, known to scientists as Phytophthora infestans , is a fungus-like organism that was responsible for the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s and continues to cause devastating agricultural losses worldwide today. Infected plants are characteri...

Bacteria give up secrets in war waged on plants

... ranging from bacterial speck in tomatoes and fire blight in apples and pears can devastate crops. Human bacterial pathogens use a similar basic principle to cause diseases. "Bacterial diseases are generally difficult to control," said He, who works in the MSU-Department of Energy Plant Research Laborator...

Malaria, potato famine pathogen share surprising trait

...a infestans, the microbe that triggers late potato blight in vegetables including potatoes, soybeans and tomatoes. "It sounds crazy, but it's not totally ridiculous to consider such a drug," said Kamoun, who is an expert on the Phytophthora group of pathogens. He conducted the study with lead author Kastur...

Virginia Tech helping to develop higher quality, disease-resistant wheat varieties

... mildew, leaf rust, stripe rust, and fusarium head blight result in significant losses in yield and quality each year. For example, researchers will be identifying and using DNA markers to select varieties possessing genes conferring durable resistant to powdery mildew, which causes annual crop loss of 10 ...

Finding rewrites the evolutionary history of the origin of potatoes

...potato production. Potato diseases such as late blight can cause significant economic damage to farmers in America and throughout the world. "As a taxonomist, my job is to help determine what is a species and to classify those species into related groups," Spooner explains. "Other scientists use these ...

Lethal needle blight epidemic may be related to climate change

...d spores of pathogen Biologists studying a lethal blight of lodgepole pines in northwestern British Columbia present strong evidence in the September issue of BioScience that climate change is to blame for the outbreak. The blight, caused by the fungus Dothistroma septosporum, causes trees to lose their ne...

Researchers find gene that may be at root of potato blight

... suspect plays an important role in triggering the blight that wiped out Ireland's potato crops a century-an...said. "Disturbing reports predict that potato late blight could cause food shortages and hunger in several parts of the world." He added that the spread of P...

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