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Agriculture scientist Dr Matthew Cock, chief scientist for Cabi, a UK-based agri-environment research organisation, lists some of the biggest biological threats to global food security. Pests like desert locust, western corn root worm (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera), the Khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium), mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) are suggested together with plant diseases, causing famine in the past: potato blight (Phytophthora infestans), or big economic losses in agricultural production: wheat stem rust strain Ug99 (Puccinia graminis tritici), South American rubber blight (Microcyclus ulei) and cofee wilt disease (Fusarium xylarioides). The original article (BBC News) was cited also by IPM in the South (18 Jan 2012). Please note: - Posts are only brief summaries - click the title or "Show original" at the bottom of the box, to see the original article. Usually also a photo is interactive, just like links in the text are.
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Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution—four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic (or non-DNA cellular transmission of traits), behavioral, and symbolic (transmission through language and other forms of symbolic communication). These systems, they argue, can all provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.
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RT @rootpac: AGROMILLORA in the workshop "New perspectives in phytoplasma disease management", COST Action FA0807 http://t.co/YIP7tB3WL7
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To provide molecular and biochemical information on metabolic pathways in potato (Solanum tuberosum), Arabidopsis signaling pathways, and drought response pathways.
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In recent years, multipronged research efforts have brought a new level of understanding about this pathogen's complex biology and disease mechanisms, leading to better management strategies. The key papers presented below, published in Phytopathology, Plant Disease, and Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions, tell a story of progress. Free access is available to these papers for a limited time.
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Phytoplasmas are bacteria without cell walls from the class Mollicutes. They are obligate intracellular plant pathogens which cause diseases in hundreds of economically important plants including the grapevine (Vitis vinifera).
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The Panel on Plant Health conducted a pest risk assessment for Chrysanthemum stunt viroid (CSVd) and identified and evaluated risk reduction options, particularly those listed in Council Directive 2000/29/EC.
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The hands-on 4-day qPCR Experience workshop: Real-time PCR in Plant pathology: Diagnostics and Reseach will focus on diagnostics and quantification of plant pathogenic microorganisms using real-time PCR integrating EPPO Guidelines.
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Prior to 2007, late blight was not reported as a serious threat to tomato cultivation in India although the disease has been known on potato since 1953. In 2009 and 2010, severe late blight epidemics were observed in Karnataka state of India, causing crop losses up to 100%. The phenotypic and genotypic characters of isolates examined in this study were found to be similar to that of 13_A2 genotype of P. infestans population reported in Europe. Thus, appearance of new population similar to 13_A2 genotype was responsible for severe late blight epidemics on tomato in South-West India.
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BSPP News item (RT @mimitanimoto: Shortage of Plant Disease Experts Threatens Tree and Crop Health - BSPP News http://t.co/1Si6ks2V...)...
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Plants can sometimes exhibit human-like behavior — some respond to music, smell other plants or seem to shrink away when touched. In fact, some would argue that greenery is sensitive enough to deserve rights.
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CHANNELSScientists develops new Nigerian cassavaCHANNELSPlant scientists at a Swiss science and technology university, ETH Zurich have developed a new Nigerian cassava preferred by consumers and farmers that is resistant to the two major virus diseases...
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Plant Disease, Volume 96, Issue 9, Page 1245-1249, September 2012.
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The second example of storing digital data in DNA affirms its potential as a long-term storage medium. Researchers have done it again—encoding 5.2 million bits of digital data in strings of DNA and demonstrating the feasibility of using DNA as a long-term, data-dense storage medium for massive amounts of information. In the new study released today (January 23) in Nature, researchers encoded one color photograph, 26 seconds of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and all 154 of Shakespeare’s known sonnets into DNA. The researchers calculated that 1 gram of DNA could hold more than 2 million megabytes of information, though encoding information on this scale will involve reducing the synthesis error rate even further.
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Adapting a novel form of insect resistance discovered in a wild plant native to Peru, Mutschler-Chu, professor of plant breeding and genetics, first isolated the resistance. She found that it was mediated by droplets of sugar ...
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Maize Lethal Necrosis disease, which was first reported in Kenya and Tanzania, has now spread to Uganda, raising concerns for food security in the country.
When you look out on a golden-yellow field of oilseed rape you might not think you're seeing a battleground, but crops including oilseed rape, wheat, potato and tomato are engaged in a constant fight with pests and disease, trying to stay one step ahead. As the world's human population looks set to increase to nine billion people by 2050, keeping plants healthy and productive is going to be essential to making sure there is enough food to go round.Aphids damage crops by feeding on them and transmitting plant diseases. "Crop pests are emerging earlier due to global warming and new variants are arriving from other countries, bringing new plant viruses", said Dr Saskia Hogenhout from the John Innes Centre (JIC) in Norwich, an institute strategically funded by the BBSRC. Among these pests whitefly and green peach aphids cause hundreds of millions of pounds of damage and loss to crops through transmitting viruses and feeding. Both species are notorious for demonstrating the ability to rapidly develop resistance to conventional pesticides, and both attack a wide variety of crops, including cabbage, lettuce, beet, oilseed rape and potato. In UK cereal crops aphids alone can cause yield losses of over 40 per cent, and insect pests are responsible for an estimated 15 per cent of all crop losses globally. Dr Hogenhout said: "The aphids and whitefly themselves are problematic but they also transmit more than half of all plant viruses. They're called the mosquitoes of plants because like mosquitoes they feed on the vascular system and they transmit quite a number of viruses."
Via Kamoun Lab @ TSL
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Claire Curry selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases or their predators from CAB Abstracts. Some records of pests are: - First record of Trioza vitreoradiata (Maskell) (Hemiptera: Triozidae) in citrus.
- Biological and serological diagnosis of Iris yellow spot virus in onion from northern India.
- Fusarium chlamydosporum, causing wilt disease of guava (Psidium guajava L.) in India.
- New distribution and lure records of Dacinae (Diptera: Tephritidae) from Queensland, Australia, and description of a new species of Dacus fabricius.
- Chilli bud borer, Goethella asulcatta Girault in Andhra Pradesh.
- First report of the invasive stink bug Bagrada hilaris (Burmeister) (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) from New Mexico, with notes on its biology.
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New species of the year http://t.co/uEGufcLB #opentree #phylo #TOL #evolution #nature #species #nature #biodiversity Taxonomists have described about 1.9 million living species so far (not counting bacteria and archaea). But a recent estimate predicts 6.8 million more to discover. At the current pace, it will take another 400 years to name them all. If a higher estimate is right, the job could take 1,653 years, assuming species don’t go extinct before scientists notice them.
The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative Presents: The Life Cycle of Wheat Stem Rust.
Via Mary Williams
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Farmers Guardian. Decline in plant disease expertise is a cause for concern. Plant pathology has been lost completely, or greatly reduced at 11 universities and colleges, while fewer than half of the institutions which teach biology, agriculture or forestry offer courses in plant pathology
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Potato Leafroll Virus (PLRV) and Potato Spindle Tuber Viroid (PSTVd) are pathogenes which cause cultivars degeneratation and yield reduction of potato,and spread extensively. Previous researches indicated that the spreading of PLRV by aphids redounded to the propagation of PSTVd. Therefore, it is especially important for potato cultivars to resist PLRV and PSTVd together. An effective and economic method to cultivate virus-resistant potato cultivars could be by plant genetic engineering. In this research marker-free bivalent expression vector p3301-DR-Isir with RNAi structure of PLRV IS and di-component ribozyme specificly cleaving PSTVd RNA(-)was constructed successfully, which could be used as gene source to transform potato cultivars for high resistances to PLRV and PSTVd.
The Q-bank Phytoplasma database contains DNA sequences (Barcodes) of more than 100 strains that are of relevance to phytoplasma phytopathology. Q-bank offers descriptions of well characterized regulated plants pests. It comprises ecological, morphological, physiological, and sequence data of items that are available in physical collections of plantpathogenic bacteria, fungi, insects, nematodes, phytoplasmas, viruses and viroids, and invasive plants. The entries in Q-bank are continuously updated by a team of curators with taxonomic, phytosanitary and diagnostic expertise from world-wide national plant protection organizations and institutes with connections to relevant phytosanitary collections. Where relevant, information is linking to other databases such as European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO).
Via Dr. Stefan Gruenwald
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Plant Disease, Volume 96, Issue 11, Page 1608-1614, November 2012.
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Plant Disease, Volume 96, Issue 9, Page 1303-1308, September 2012.
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Even in closely related species, lifestyle molds the genetic makeup of pathogens and how their genes are used.
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