Several plant hormones, including ethylene and jasmonates, are known to mediate responses against biotic and abiotic stress. The first and second objectives of this thesis were (i) to elucidate the role of ethylene in defense responses against Botrytis cinerea and specifically (ii) to determine the potential contribution of ethylene response...
Fire blight is a serious disease of apple and pear trees caused by the bacterium, Erwinia amylovora. This bacterium harbors a pathogenesis mechanism known as the Hrp secretory operon which induces some resistance genes and suppresses other resistance genes in the host plant following invasion. While previous researchers analyzed expression...
Crown gall disease is an agricultural problem caused by the soil-borne bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. A. tumefaciens oncogenes cause transformed plant cells to overproduce the hormones, auxin and cytokinin. High hormone levels cause unorganized plant cell growth resulting in a gall. Control of crown gall disease is difficult because after plant...
Pesticides—including insecticides, acaricides, fungicides, and bactericides are essential for maintaining healthy crops with reliable yields and quality. In many instances, pesticides have become less effective as target organisms have developed resistance. The first record of resistance dates to 1897, when orchardists began having problems controlling San Jose scale (Quadraspidiotus perniciosus...
Bioassays of acetone extracts from xylem tissue in tomato stems
and corresponding reductions in Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici
race 1 or 2 populations within the stems suggest that fungitoxic
materials within the xylem vessels of Bonny Best, Jefferson, and Marglobe
tomato cultivars initially kill a portion of the inoculum conidia....
The effects of some soil- and foliar-borne biotic factors on
grain yield and the components of yield were evaluated using five
winter wheat varieties sown at two dates. Within each planting date,
varieties were grown under four different combinations of two soil
treatments (fumigation and nonfumigation) and two foliar treatments...