Viral diseases occur wherever sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is cultivated and because this crop is vegetatively propagated, accumulation and perpetuation of viruses can become a major constraint for production. Up to 90% reductions in yield have been reported in association with viral infections. About 20 officially accepted or tentative virus species have been found in sweet potato and other ...

The Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say) Order Coleoptera and the potato leafhopper, Empoasca fabae (Harris) Order Homoptera, are the major insect pests of potato in eastern North America. In two years of field trials, we compared the effectiveness of three pest management options for the control of Colorado potato beetle and potato leafhopper: natural host plant resistance (...

The potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) cultivar 'SpuntaG2' contains a single copy of the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cry1Ia1 gene and controls potato tuberworm (Phthorimaea operculella Zeller, Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae). Two potato cultivars and two breeding lines were crossed with SpuntaG2 creating four populations used to study cry1Ia1 segregation and efficacy. The cry1Ia1 gene segregated in each o...

Late blight, caused by the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, is the most devastating disease of potato. In organic farming, late blight is controlled by repeated applications of copper-based products, which negatively impact the environment. To find alternative solutions for late blight management, we have previously isolated a large collection of bacteria from the phyllosphere and the rhizosphe...

An, L.V., 2004. Sweet potato leaves for growing pigs: Biomass yield, digestion and nutritive value. Doctor’s dissertation. ISSN 1401-6249, ISBN 91-576-6750-0 The aim of the present studies was to evaluate the potential of using sweet potato leaves (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam) as a protein source in diets for growing pigs. A number of sweet potato varieties were evaluated with respect to the bioma...

ADPglucose pyrophosphorylase has been extensively purified from potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) tuber tissue to study its structure. By employing a modified published procedure (JR Sowokinos, J Preiss [1982] Plant Physiol 69: 1459-1466) together with Mono Q chromatography, a near homogeneous enzyme preparation was obtained with substantial improvement in enzyme yield and specific activity. In sin...

The processing of olfactory information in the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say, was studied by recording responses of olfactory neurones intracellularly in the deutocerebrum. Response characteristics of neurones in this first relay station of the olfactory pathway were measured when the antennae were stimulated with five general green leaf volatiles, i.e. cis-3-hexen-1-ol,...

Ectopic expression of viral movement proteins (MPs) has previously been shown to alter plasmodesmata (PD) function and carbon partitioning in transgenic plants, giving rise to the view of PD being dynamic and highly regulated structures that allow resource allocation to be adapted to environmental and developmental needs. However, most work has been restricted to solanaceous species and the pot...

Many plant viruses encode for specialized movement proteins (MP) to facilitate passage of viral material to and through plasmodesmata (PD). To analyze intracellular trafficking of potato leaf roll virus (PLRV) movement protein (MP17) we performed GFP fusion experiments with distinct deletion variants of MP17. These studies revealed that the C-terminus of MP17 is essential but not sufficient for...