Soft Rot News Today

The pumpkin on the right has a fungal disease known as black rot. Matt Kasson, CC BY-SAFor many Americans, pumpkins mean that fall is here. In anticipation, coffee shops, restaurants and grocery stores start their pumpkin flavor promotions in late August, a month before autumn officially begins. And shoppers start buying fresh decorative winter produce, such as pumpkins and turban squash, in the hot, sultry days of late summer. But these fruits – yes, botanically, pumpkins and squash are ...

Credit: Janak R. Joshi, Linxing Yao, Amy O. Charkowski, and Adam L. Heuberger Potato is the most consumed vegetable crop worldwide. However, despite its importance, potato production is severely affected by high susceptibility to a wide range of microbial pathogens, such as bacteria from the genus Pectobacterium, which cause various devastating diseases in potato and produce important economic losses. Even though resistance to Pectobacterium species is limited within cultivated potato varieti...