Stand problems consistently cause significant production and management losses in Arkansas rice fields. In 2002, many fields in Arkansas had severe stand losses. Three control practices are being examined in this project for managing stand losses due to seedling diseases: 1) seed treatment fungicides, 2) development of cold-tolerant cultivars, and 3) the use of disease-suppressive production sy...

Pythium species are the most common seedling disease pathogens isolated from rice in producers’ fields in Arkansas. These studies examined the value of Pythium resistance in breeding lines with cold tolerance in early-season planting environments. These lines show promise for reliable stand establishment in Arkansas. The breeding line RU0701124 had more plants/acre and greater relative root wei...

Composts prepared from a variety of feedstocks were tested for their ability to suppress seedling and root diseases of creeping bentgrass caused by Pythium graminicola. Among the most suppressive materials in laboratory experiments were different batches of a brewery sludge compost and a biosolids compost from Endicott, N.Y. Batches of these composts that were initially not suppressive to Pythi...

Soil-borne pathogens are posited to maintain forest diversity. However, their in situ impact and spatial variation are largely unknown. We examined spatial patterns of pathogenic activity in a deciduous forest using a common garden experiment and also in a natural experiment around replicated trees, and we quantified Pythium (a soil-borne pathogen) density around individual Prunus serotina tree...

The rapid spread of West Nile viral activity across North America since its discovery in 1999 illustrates the potential for an exotic arbovirus to be introduced and widely established across North America. Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) has been responsible for large outbreaks in Africa that have resulted in hundreds of thousands of human infections and major economic disruption due to loss of ...

We report the first case of pythiosis from Africa in an 8-month-old dog with a chronic and ulcerative cutaneous lesion. The etiologic agent belonged to the genus Pythium. Phylogenetic analysis placed the isolate in a sister group to the other P. insidiosum strains. However, the isolate may belong to a new Pythium species.

The oomycete Pythium oligandrum is a mycoparasite and licenced biological control agent. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of P. oligandrum strain CBS 530.74, which is 36.80 Mb. It contains 341 scaffolds and 11,647 predicted protein-coding genes. As reported for plant-pathogenic Pythium species, RXLR-type effector sequences are absent.

The species composition and seasonal population dynamics of mosquitoes trapped in the Belek Region of Turkey are described. Eight traps (four New Jersey light traps and four CO2 baited traps) were activated weekly at four different sampling sites (wooded area, open field, village, and road edge). Between May and December, 1997, 4,542 specimens representing seven species (Culex pipiens, Culex tr...

Two independent experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of rhizosphere bacteria on the growth of Anthoxanthum odoratum and Panicum sphaerocarpon. We tested whether host-specific populations of Bacillus mycoides affected the growth of their Anthoxanthum and Panicum hosts and whether host-specific differences in Bacillus populations modified the strong detrimental effect of the ro...