Scientific FrontlineMay 28
Certain agricultural soils function as dynamic living systems capable of naturally inhibiting the infection and survival of devastating fungal pathogens, such as Sclerotinia sclerotiorum.
#AgriculturalScience #SoilEcology #Microbiology #PlantPathology #Botany #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2026/05/agri05282601.html
How Soils Naturally Suppress Crop Diseases

Discover how specific soil microbiomes, enriched with beneficial bacteria, can naturally suppress major fungal crop diseases to protect yields.

Adam H. Sparks May 21
Nice to see our SMARTSAT CRC project on hyperspectral wheat and barley disease detection project up in lights tonight in Perth! #Agriculture #RemoteSensing #PlantPathology #HyperspectralImagery
Scientific FrontlineMay 20
Botrytis cinerea, commonly known as gray mold, is a highly destructive necrotrophic agricultural fungus capable of infecting over a thousand plant species and causing massive global crop losses. Recent research reveals that the pathogen dynamically adjusts its infection strategy based on the specific plant it is attacking, defying previous assumptions about plant-pathogen interactions.
#PlantPathology #AgriculturalScience #Botany #Genetics #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2026/05/agri05202601.html
Gray Mold Pathogenesis & Crop Defense

Discover how the Botrytis cinerea fungus targets crops and how new UC Davis research is finding genetic ways to disorient gray mold and save harvests.

Adam H. Sparks Apr 20

My latest preprint with @edelponte is now available, “Climatic fingerprint of the 2023 wheat head blast outbreak and its historical and future analogs in southern South America.”

https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.31220/agriRxiv.2026.00429

#PlantPathology #Modelling #WheatBlast #OpenWheatBlast

Adam H. Sparks Apr 13

New version of {epifitter} is now on CRAN with my contribution of calculating AUDPC from 2 points using the Jeger and Viljanen-Rollinson method and a bug fix (and performance improvements) in the AUDPC function.

https://alvesks.github.io/epifitter/reference/AUDPC_2_points.html

#RStats #PlantPathology

Estimate AUDPC from two observations — AUDPC_2_points

Estimate the area under the disease progress curve from only the initial and final observations under a logistic epidemic assumption.

JIPBApr 8

Wu et al. discuss recent work on systemic stomatal immunity (SSIM), a fast-acting, targeted #plant #defense mechanism in which #pathogen challenge triggers distal stomatal closure within hours.

https://doi.org/10.1111/jipb.70245
@WileyLifeSci
#PlantSci #JIPB #Arabidopsis #PlantPathology #botany

Adam H. Sparks Apr 1

Fresh off the press

“From Scalar Summaries to Functional Comparisons: A Framework for Analyzing Plant Disease Progress Curves”

https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/10.1094/PHYTO-01-26-0009-LE

#PlantPathology

Megan Lynch (she/her)Jan 27

Why Florida’s Orange Industry Is In Free Fall

People like to complain about agricultural inspections at borders, but preventing something like this is why inspections are needed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guCkWXZlQfI #PlantPathology #PlantScience #FruitToot #Horticulture #Florida

Why Florida’s Orange Industry Is In Free Fall

YouTube
Megan Lynch (she/her)Nov 20, 2025

Free, but to ASHS members only, I guess.

ASHS is a good professional society if you're interested in fruit-growing and vegetable production. They do have a student level of membership too.

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Y0uelU8nRyyDYeOEthRPfg#/registration #Horticulture #PlantPathology #PlantScience #Botany #FruitToot #Midwest

Show threadSarah ArnoldNov 12, 2025
Amma Simon presents some work about aphids and fusarium on wheat; R. padi goes on leaves/stems, S. avenae on heads, which also can get Fusarium. Therefore, S.a. avoids Fusarium-infected wheat but R.p. does not, and can benefit from infection!
#AAB_IPPM #Entomology #PlantPathology