plant pathology

Rupesh Kariyat, an associate professor of entomology and plant pathology with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, has been studying silverleaf nightshade for more than a decade.

Vasquez, now an entomology and plant pathology Ph.D. student at the University of Arkansas, was the lead author.

Galen Collins, assistant professor in MSU's Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, co-authored the groundbreaking paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, in April.

"We went back to original descriptions of the potato disease outbreaks in the United States because they occurred between 1843 and 1845, before outbreaks occurred in Europe," says Jean Ristaino, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology at North Carolina State University and corresponding author of a paper in Scientific Reports that describes the study.

Carolee Bull, corresponding author and professor of bacterial systematics and plant pathology, of plant pathology and of environmental microbiology, said the findings could inform methods for detecting and quantifying the pathogens causing blackleg and soft rot in Pennsylvania and beyond.