WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service issued the following news: Helping farmers turn the tide on an emerging disease of corn called tar spot is the focus of a multi-organization team of scientists, including from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in West Lafayette, Indiana. Caused by the fungus Phyllachora maydis, tar spot appears as black, roughly circular discolorations on the leaves, husks and stalks of corn plants. A tan halo somet  more

OXFORD, England, Oct. 28 -- Annals of Botany, an international plant science journal, published research articles on the following topics in its October 2021 edition: ORIGINAL ARTICLES: * Fruit softening: evidence for pectate lyase action in vivo in date (Phoenix dactylifera) and rosaceous fruit cell walls * Tracking cell wall changes in wine and table grapes undergoing Botrytis cinerea infection using glycan microarrays * Growth of 19 conifer species is highly sensitive to winter warming,   more