Verticillium wilt (caused by Verticillium dahliae), a soilborne disease, often causes significant reductions of yield in eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) production where crop rotation is limited. Rootstock replacement through grafting is considered an effective method to control this disease. This 2-year study investigated the eggplant yield, resistance to verticillium wilt, and allelochemicals...

Fusarium wilt is caused by the fungal pathogens, Fusarium oxysporum or Fusarium solani. It is a devastating disease that affects many important food and vegetable crops and a major source of loss to farmers worldwide. Initial strategies developed to combat this devastating plant disease include the use of cultural, physical and chemical control. None of these strategies have been able to give t...

I the last decade, tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) has become widely distributed across Alabama on many field, vegetable, and floral crops. About 300 plant species, mainly broadleafs, are hosts of TSWV. In addition to peanut, other important crops grown in the Southeast that are susceptible to this virus include tomato, pepper, potato, cucurbits, lettuce, eggplant, and tobacco. Chrysanthemum, ...

Verticillium wilt, caused by the Verticillium dahliae phytopathogen, is a devastating disease affecting many economically important crops. A receptor-like protein (RLP) gene, Ve1, has been reported to confer resistance to V. dahliae in tomato plants, but few genes have been found to be involved in cotton Verticillium wilt resistance. Here, we cloned two RLP gene homologs, Gossypium barbadense r...

The kaolin-based particle film Surround has been shown to suppress various insect pests and foliar diseases while reducing canopy temperature and improving water use efficiency in certain agricultural production systems. The usefulness of Surround was examined against important production constraints in peanut, including tomato spotted wilt, leaf spots, and aflatoxin contamination. Field experi...

Soilborne fungal pathogens cause devastating yield losses and are highly persistent and difficult to control. During the infection process, these organisms must cope with limited availability of iron. Here we show that the bZIP protein HapX functions as a key regulator of iron homeostasis and virulence in the vascular wilt fungus Fusarium oxysporum. Deletion of hapX does not affect iron uptake ...

We investigated a destructive pathogenic variant of the plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum that was consistently isolated in Martinique (French West Indies). Since the 1960s, bacterial wilt of solanaceous crops in Martinique has been caused primarily by strains of R. solanacearum that belong to either phylotype I or phylotype II. Since 1999, anthurium shade houses have been dramatically affe...

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) and tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) are common diseases of tomato in Florida. TYLCV occurs in central and southern Florida whereas TSWV occurs in northern Florida and throughout all states of the southeastern USA. TYLCVresistant cultivars and advanced breeder’s varieties are available for commercial use, but vegetable producers don’t often use them. A vari...

The tomato vascular wilt pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici produces an array of pectinolytic enzymes that may contribute to penetration and colonization of the host plant. Here we report the isolation of pg5, encoding a novel extracellular endopolygalacturonase (endoPG) that is highly conserved among different formae speciales of F. oxysporum. The putative mature pg5 product has a ...

The biological control agent Pseudomonas fluorescens was used against the bacterial wilt causing Ralstonia solanacearum. The present investigation focuses on the role of defense related enzymes in imparting resistance in tomato against R. solanacearum. A total of ten rhizobacterial isolates were screened against R. solanacearum, of which three isolates (Pf3, Pf5 & Pf8) showed a maximum inhibiti...