Long-horn beetles take a liking to frankincense

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Frankincense – Image from Wikimedia While we have been filling our homes with traditional Christmas trees, the long-horn beetle has instead decided to go for a more up-market décor. Boswellia trees, which produce the resin used to make frankincense, have recently suffered from a worrying decline in numbers, with experts predicting that we have limited…
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Update: Plant Health News (21 Dec 11)

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Here’s a taste of some of the latest news stories about plant health: Ethiopia: Tuta absoluta is extending its damage to the potato tuber Fresh Plaza, 20 December 2011 Kenya: Hope for avocado as country sets wasps on fruit flies FreshPlaza, 20 December 2011 Israeli green pest control FreshPlaza, 20 December 2011 Scientists crack locust…
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Remote microscope networks enable long distance pest diagnoses

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The Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (CRCNPB) in Australia is developing a new way to share information on crop pests and diseases. In addition to providing diagnostic tools in the form of a database on plant pests similar to Plantwise’s Knowledge Bank, they have created an online remote microscope network, which “allows species…
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Deck the halls with boughs of…Vascular-Streak Dieback?

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As the supermarkets fill their shelves with an abundance of chocolate in anticipation of the festive season, the supply appears plentiful. For Indonesian cocoa farmers, however, the story is a very different one. 10% of global cocoa output comes from Indonesia, but this year the Indonesian cocoa industry has suffered from outbreaks of Vascular-Streak Dieback…
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Update: New Pest & Disease Records (15 Dec 11)

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We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Click on the links to view the abstracts. Detection of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma brasiliense’ in a new geographic region and existence of two genetically distinct dnaK genotypes. Balakishiyeva, G.; Qurbanov, M.; Mammadov, A.; Bayramov, S.;…
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RIDL baffles Pink Bollworms

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Pink bollworm larvae, photo by Peggy Greb, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org It was love at first sight for many pink bollworms this year, but as their eyes met across the cotton field all was not as it seemed… Oxitec (a company based not far from the Plantwise Knowledge Bank team), have managed to genetically engineer…
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Creating super banana plants in the fight against nematode worms

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Scientists in the UK and Uganda are developing a genetically modified (GM) variety of banana that is resistant to nematode worms, which account for a high percentage of banana crop losses in Africa. It is estimated that the losses of crops due to nematodes amounts to $125 billion a year. Currently, nematodes are controlled using…
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Update: Plant Health News (7 Dec 11)

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Here’s a taste of some of the latest news stories about plant health: Whitefly, tomato growers find truce in new Texas variety  EurekAlert!, 5 December 2011 Weather blamed for rise in violet root rot FWi – Arable News, 2 December 2011 Parasitoids Larvae in Caterpillars Affect Behaviour of Moths CropBiotech Update, 2 December 2011 Scientists Evaluate Effects of Bt…
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Managing deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination in Fusarium head blight affected wheat

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Fusarium spp. (particularly F. graminearum) causes a serious disease on wheat called Fusarium head blight. The disease affects the quantity and quality of grain and under favorable weather conditions can cause more than 45% yield losses. Symptoms include the appearance of tan or brown discoloration on spikelets resulting in white, shriveled kernels. Such infected kernels…
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The seed social network

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A new study by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) looking at cowpea crop diversity following floods and drought in Mozambique has shown that seed sharing networks are a valuable way to maintain, and often improve, crop diversity. Informal sharing and trade of seed within and between local communities in the Limpopo River Valley,…
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