Update: Plant Health News (29 Feb 12)
Here’s a taste of some of the latest news stories about plant health, including dehydrated weevils, bananas saved from nematode attack, and how weeds and diseases work together to take down sweetcorn. Click on the link to read more of the latest plant health news!
Getting Older Quicker: Wheat’s New Ageing Problem
Many of us dislike getting older, but you can usually predict how it will go: next year you expect to be 1 year older and you expect your body to be 1 year older. But what if instead of continually growing over a year, your body instead decided to grow for 6 months and then stop…
Leaf miner becomes vine connoisseur
Leaf miners have an eclectic palate between them, enjoying everything from sweet potatoes to coconuts and cashews. It appears that at some point they decided that something was missing – perhaps a fine wine to wash it all down? After intensive studying of diet, morphology and DNA barcoding, it has been revealed that a mystery moth…
Shouting out about plant clinics
Plantwise works with in-country agencies to set up plant clinics, which farmers can attend with a sample of their affected crops to obtain a diagnosis and treatment advice. Plant clinics are often run in larger towns or villages, and farmers can travel many miles to talk to a plant doctor to solve their crop problems.…
Update: New Pest & Disease Records (21 Feb 12)
We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this fortnight include a new, unnamed virus infecting tomatoes and Euphorbia species in Venezuela; first reports of watermelon viruses in Palestine and Serbia; and a phytoplasma that infects prickly pear being found in…
Update: Plant Health News (16 Feb 12)
Here’s a taste of some of the latest plant health news stories, including plants that resist pests by telling the time, the fly that’s endangering German fruit crops, and why less snow has led to more yellow-cedar trees freezing this year. Click on the link to read more of the latest plant health news!
Need to control rodents on your crops? Use birds of prey!
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel is encouraging farmers to use barn owls (Tyto alba) to control rodent pests on their crops. They aim to attract barn owls by constructing nest boxes; so far 2,000 have been distributed to farmers. As barn owls only hunt at night, day-hunting kestrels are also being…
Update: New Pest & Disease Records (09 Feb 12)
We’ve selected a few of the latest new geographic, host and species records for plant pests and diseases from CAB Abstracts. Records this fortnight include a new phytoplasma infecting soybean in Costa Rica, a parasitic nematode causing damage to several plant species in Brazil, and the Mediterranean fruit fly spreading and widening its host preference…
Amino acid stops citrus industry going sour
Lime Swallowtail by Tarique Sani, SANIsoft, Bugwood.org The citrus industry is of significant economic importance to the US, so when any potential pest appears on the horizon there is cause for concern. When the lime swallowtail (Papilio demoleus) was found in the Caribbean in 2006, scientists realised that it may only be a matter of time before these strong fliers appear…
Agricultural Super Ducks
Agricultural super ducks? You may think that the entire phrase is flawed. Ducks waddle around in parks, not on farms. You probably have never thought of them as being particularly ‘super’ as they paddle around the park pond, searching for scraps of bread. However, you’d be mistaken, as I was, for the humble duck is…