Received for publication 16 July 1998. Accepted for publication 1 Dec. 1998. Contribution from the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. Research supported by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison. The cost of publishing this paper was defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. Under postal regulations, this paper therefore must be hereby marked ad...

The endospore-forming bacterium Pasteuria penetrans is an obligate parasite of root-knot nematodes (Meloidogyne spp.). The primary objective of this study was to determine the effect of crop sequence on abundance of P. penetrans. The experiment was conducted from 2000 to 2008 at a field site naturally infested with both the bacterium and its host Meloidogyne arenaria and included the following ...

Soil sample collection Nutrient content of soil can vary greatly by depth. The top 4-6 inches, the zone into which most fertilizer is placed and most crop residue is incorporated, often has much higher levels of organic matter, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and micronutrients than the soil below. To accurately reflect overall nutrient availability a soil sample should be collected...

The Swede midge, Contarinia nasturtii Kieffer (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae), a common insect pest in Europe, is a newly invasive pest in North America that constitutes a major threat to cruciferous vegetable and field crops. Since its first identification in Ontario, Canada, in 2000, it has rapidly spread to 65 counties in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and has recently been found in canola (on...

Understanding how the environment and production and cultivation practices influence the composition and quality of food crops is fundamental to the production of high-quality nutritious foods. In this 3-year study, total phenolics, percent soluble solids, ascorbic acid, and the flavonoid aglycones quercetin, kaempferol, and luteolin were measured in two varieties of tomato (Lycopersicon escule...

A survey of 125 farmers was conducted in 2005 in the Central and Western highlands of Kenya and the Kullu valley in the Western Himalayas of India to investigate pest management practices and constraints among farmers growing cruciferous vegetables. Lepidopteran insects were the most important pests affecting the crops and pest management relied primarily on application of pyrethroid and/or org...

In this study, the aim is to develop a population model based approach to optimize fruit harvesting strategies with regard to fruit quality and its derived economic value. This approach was applied to the case of tomato fruit harvesting under Vietnamese conditions. Fruit growth and development of tomato (cv. "Savior") was monitored in terms of fruit size and color during both the Vietnamese win...

Demographic trends and changes to climate require a more efficient use of plant genetic resources in breeding programs. Indeed, the release of high-yielding varieties has resulted in crop genetic erosion and loss of diversity. This has produced an increased susceptibility to severe stresses and a reduction of several food quality parameters. Next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies are bei...