agriculture pathogen News

As the laurel wilt pathogen casts a cloud over the $100-million-a-year Florida avocado industry, University of Florida researchers continue to look for clues to prevent the pathogen from spreading. The main culprit has been the redbay ambrosia beetle, which has infected millions of native redbay and swampbay trees with the laurel wilt pathogen, but it is rarely seen in commercial avocado ...

May 23, 2016

By University of Florida

University of Florida researchers have found an algorithm to help them detect laurel wilt, the deadly pathogen that threatens Florida’s $100 million-a-year avocado industry. Reza Ehsani, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering, said the algorithm finds laurel wilt-infected avocado trees before symptoms are visible to the naked eye. About 500 growers produce ...

Nov. 15, 2015

By Everglades Research & Education Center

Growing crops with stacks of two or more resistance genes from closely related species, introduced into the crop via for instance genetic engineering, combined with the simultaneous introduction of resistance management, can ensure the long-term resistance of these plants to economically significant and aggressive diseases. The combination offers opportunities to make agriculture more sustainable ...

Sep. 3, 2015

By Wageningen University and Research Centre

WASHINGTON, DC (ENS) - The UN Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, have signed an agreement to enhance their cooperation to promote and support the development of a sustainable global agriculture system. Approved last fall, the agreement was signed Wednesday by FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture ...

Mar. 18, 2007

By Environment News Service (ENS)

The Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development must reset research priorities, says World Food Prize winner Monty Jones. The world's agricultural scientists have done life-saving work in university laboratories, global research centres and government agencies. Millions of people across the developing world are alive today because of advances that have conquered deadly pathogens, ...

Mar. 21, 2010

By SciDev.Net

With food demand and water scarcity on the uptick, it's time to stop treating wastewater like garbage and instead manage it as a resource that can be used to grow crops and help address water scarcity in agriculture. ...

Jan. 18, 2017

By Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will provide close to $3 million in technical and financial assistance for interested farmers and ranchers to help improve the health of bees, which play an important role in crop production. The funding is a focused investment to improve pollinator health and will be targeted in five Midwestern states, ...

Feb. 24, 2014

By U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Experts from The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and the College of Veterinary Medicine are available to speak with the media about the avian influenza virus. A federal report released on May 11 determined agency challenges in preventing the virus in both poultry and humans. Change-Won (Charles) Lee, an Ohio Agricultural Research and Development ...

May 16, 2017

By Ohio State University

The number of different pests plaguing crops in the developing world may be vastly underestimated, contributing to severely reduced harvests in some of the world’s most important food-producing nations, say researchers. About 200 pests and pathogens per country fly under the radar of researchers and policymakers in the developing world due to a lack of technical capacity to detect them, ...

Mar. 7, 2014

By SciDev.Net

That swine manure sprayed on to fields adds valuable nutrients to the soil is well known. But what is not known is whether all that manure is bringing harmful bacteria with it. A new study looks at the levels of nutrients and bacteria in soils of fields that have been sprayed with manure for fifteen years or more. The research team, composed of scientists from the USDA-ARS Crop Science Research ...

Sep. 8, 2010

By Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

The risk of animals passing diseases to humans could increase in some cases, but decrease in others, as people encroach on and disrupt wildlife migration paths, according to a review in Science. Climate change is also affecting migration patterns, and the review says there is an urgent need for research on how changes in habitat and climate will affect disease in migratory animals, to predict ...

Jan. 24, 2011

By SciDev.Net

Livestock intensification in developing countries, especially in Africa and Asia, may increase the incidence of epidemics that kill both humans and animals, the Vision 2020: Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health conference, was told today. Livestock numbers are rising sharply due to both population growth — small-scale farmers depend on livestock for their livelihoods ...

Feb. 10, 2011

By SciDev.Net

AgBiome, LLC, today announced it has established AgBiome Innovations™, which will commercialize technology identified by the company through its unique Genesis™ discovery and development platform. The division is led by a highly experienced team of agricultural and turf and ornamental industry leaders and is gearing up to launch its first product, a broad-spectrum biological ...

Jul. 4, 2016

By AgBiome, Inc.

Surface water quality is important for the proper function of aquatic ecosystems, as well as human needs and recreation. Pasturelands have been found to be major sources of sediment, phosphorus and pathogens in Midwest surface water resources. While poor grazing management may lead to contaminated surface water, little is known about the specific amount of pollution in pasture streams that can be ...

Jul. 20, 2011

By Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

A University of Florida scientist has pinpointed Mexico as the origin of the pathogen that caused the 1840s Irish Potato Famine, a finding that may help researchers solve the $6 billion-a-year disease that continues to evolve and torment potato and tomato growers around the world. A disease called “late blight” killed most of Ireland’s potatoes, while today it costs Florida ...

Jun. 2, 2014

By Everglades Research & Education Center

  DAVIS, Calif., Jan. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Marrone Bio Innovations today announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved a significant label expansion for Regalia®, a biofungicide that boosts plants' natural defenses to fight fungal and bacterial diseases. The label expansion includes new soil applications, ...

Jan. 17, 2012

By Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI)

  Blue Sphere Corp. (OTCBB: BLSP) (the "Company" or "Blue Sphere"), a company in the Cleantech sector as an emission reduction and renewable energy project integrator, is pleased to announce that it has embarked on a campaign to implement dairy farm waste to energy and high-value soil amendment production projects across the United States. These projects will ...

Nov. 9, 2011

By Blue Sphere Corporation

In the months ahead, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists plan to collect walnuts from Kyrgyzstan, grasses from Russia, and carrots and sunflowers from fields across the Southeastern United States in efforts that will enhance one of the nation's most effective tools for protecting the food supply. Researchers will make the trips to collect plants with useful ...

Jan. 4, 2010

By U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Many people love their avocados – not to mention guacamole dip. So it was bad enough when scientists said a beetle was ravaging avocado trees in South Florida. Then scientists found out that the redbay ambrosia beetle — originally determined to transmit laurel wilt — is rare in avocado groves but that six other beetle species could carry the laurel wilt pathogen. That’s ...

Apr. 11, 2017

By The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

Population growth, agricultural expansion, and the rise of globe-spanning food supply chains have dramatically altered how diseases emerge, jump species boundaries, and spread, according to an FAO report released today. A new, more holistic approach to managing disease threats at the animal-human-environment interface is needed, it argues. Seventy percent of the new diseases that have emerged in ...

Dec. 15, 2013

By Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)