Life Sciences Commons^™

Survey For Spotted-Wing Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) In The Five-County Nursery Production Region Of Middle Tennessee, Usa, Karla M. Addesso, Jason B. Oliver, Paul A. O'Neal

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Through global trade, spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae), a native of Southeast Asia, has spread to at least 3 other continents since 2008. Initial reports of the fly in new regions often are associated with damage in agriculture fields, but the fly may be present in the landscape for years before populations reach a level at which they become a pest in fruit production. In 2012, spotted wing drosophila was reported in blueberry fields in eastern Tennessee, USA, for the first time. In order to determine whether the fly was established in middle Tennessee, we conducted landscape surveys …

Weed Dynamics During Transition To Conservation Agriculture In Western Kenya Maize Production, Judith A. Odhiambo, Urszula Norton, Dennis Ashilenje, Emmanuel C. Omondi, Jay B. Norton

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Weed competition is a significant problem in maize (Zea mays, L.) production in Sub-Saharan Africa. Better understanding of weed management and costs in maize intercropped with beans (Phaseolus vulgaris, L.) during transition to conservation agricultural systems is needed. Changes in weed population and maize growth were assessed for a period of three years at Bungoma where crops are grown twice per year and at Trans-Nzoia where crops are grown once per year. Treatments included three tillage practices: minimum (MT), no-till (NT) and conventional (CT) applied to three cropping systems: continuous maize/bean intercropping (TYPICAL), maize/bean intercropping with relayed mucuna after bean …

Trait Associations In Common Bean Genotypes Grown Under Drought Stress And Field Infestation By Bsm Bean Fly, Daniel Ambachew, Firew Mekbib, Asrat Asfaw, Stephen E. Beebe, Matthew W. Blair

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Understanding functional relations among plant traits and their modulation by growing conditions is imperative in designing selection strategies for breeding programs. This study assessed trait relationships among 196 common bean genotypes exposed to stresses for drought and field infestation of bean fly or bean stem maggot (BSM). The study was carried out at two locations and data was analyzed with linear correlation, path coefficient and genotype × trait biplot analyses. Multiple trait data related to mechanisms of drought and bean fly tolerance were collected on 196 genotypes grown under i) water deficit at mid-pod fill, or ii) unprotected against bean …

Differentially Expressed Genes In Resistant And Susceptible Common Bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.) Genotypes In Response To Fusarium Oxysporum F. Sp. Phaseoli, Renfeng Xue, Jing Wu, Zhendong Zhu, Lanfen Wang, Xiaoming Wang, Shumin Wang, Matthew W. Blair

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Fusarium wilt of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), caused by Fusarium oxysporum Schlechtend.:Fr. f.sp. phaseoli (Fop), is one of the most important diseases of common beans worldwide. Few natural sources of resistance to Fop exist and provide only moderate or partial levels of protection. Despite the economic importance of the disease across multiple crops, only a few of Fop induced genes have been analyzed in legumes. Therefore, our goal was to identify transcriptionally regulated genes during an incompatible interaction between common bean and the Fop pathogen using the cDNA amplified fragment length polymorphism (cDNA-AFLP) technique. We generated a …

Comparative Analysis Of Pesticide Effects On Natural Enemies In Western Orchards: A Synthesis Of Laboratory Bioassay Data, Nicholas J. Mills, Elizabeth H. Beers, Peter W. Shearer, Thomas R. Unruh, Kaushalya G. Amarasekare

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Pesticides are commonly used for pest management in apple, pear and walnut orchards in the western U.S. and may disrupt biological control of secondary pests in these crops. A comparative analysis was made of results obtained from a series of laboratory bioassays of acute mortality and life table response experiments to estimate lethal and sublethal effects of eight pesticides on seven natural enemy species through use of stage-structured population models. Even though a number of the pesticides tested were reduced-risk products, all of them with the exception of copper plus mancozeb and chlorantraniliprole, caused more than 80% acute mortality of …

Corn Yield And Soil Nitrous Oxide Emission Under Different Fertilizer And Soil Management: A Three-Year Field Experiment In Middle Tennessee, Qi Deng, Dafeng Hui, Junming Wang, Stephen Iwuozo, Chih-Li Yu, Tigist Jima, David Smart, Chandra Reddy, Sam Dennis

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Background

A three-year field experiment was conducted to examine the responses of corn yield and soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emission to various management practices in middle Tennessee.

Methodology/Principal Findings

The management practices include no-tillage + regular applications of urea ammonium nitrate (NT-URAN); no-tillage + regular applications of URAN + denitrification inhibitor (NT-inhibitor); no-tillage + regular applications of URAN + biochar (NT-biochar); no-tillage + 20% applications of URAN + chicken litter (NT-litter), no-tillage + split applications of URAN (NT-split); and conventional tillage + regular applications of URAN as a control (CT-URAN). Fertilizer equivalent to 217 kg N ha-1 was applied to …

Transcriptome Sequencing Of Mung Bean (Vigna Radiate L.) Genes And The Identification Of Est-Ssr Markers, Honglin Chen, Lixia Wang, Suhua Wang, Chunji Liu, Matthew Wohlgemuth Blair, Xuzhen Cheng

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Mung bean (Vigna radiate (L.) Wilczek) is an important traditional food legume crop, with high economic and nutritional value. It is widely grown in China and other Asian countries. Despite its importance, genomic information is currently unavailable for this crop plant species or some of its close relatives in the Vigna genus. In this study, more than 103 million high quality cDNA sequence reads were obtained from mung bean using Illumina paired-end sequencing technology. The processed reads were assembled into 48,693 unigenes with an average length of 874 bp. Of these unigenes, 25,820 (53.0%) and 23,235 (47.7%) showed significant …

Evaluation Of Disinfectants To Prevent Mechanical Transmission Of Viruses And A Viroid In Greenhouse Tomato Production, Rugang Li, Fulya Baysal-Gurel, Zaid Abdo, Sally A. Miller, Kai-Shu Ling

Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Faculty Research

Background

In recent years, a number of serious disease outbreaks caused by viruses and viroids on greenhouse tomatoes in North America have resulted in significant economic losses to growers. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of commercial disinfectants against mechanical transmission of these pathogens, and to select disinfectants with broad spectrum reactivity to control general virus and viroid diseases in greenhouse tomato production.

Methods

A total of 16 disinfectants were evaluated against Pepino mosaic virus (PepMV), Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd), Tomato mosaic virus (ToMV), and Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). The efficacy of each disinfectant to …