![]() The spores may be wind borne."Īnd new, more dangerous strains are arising all the time. "In the spring, the culls sprout and the farmers may go out to remove them-but then it may already be too late. That's a primary place where the fungus lives and thrives," Pechous says. "In a bad year, farmers might not even bother to harvest-or they might leave cull piles on the sides of their fields. Under a heavy fungal load, a potato tuber turns to black, gooey mush. From each potato "eye" a new plant will form, one green shoot that will release millions of fungal spores to reinfect the field. In the spring, when the farmers cut their seed potatoes into pieces to plant a new crop, they perpetuate the fungal lifecycle. If the potato is very susceptible, these hyphae will grow throughout the potato, destroying it, basically extracting its nutrients." After the potato is harvested and put into cold storage, the fungus continues to grow. "When they come into contact with a potato tuber," Pechous explains, "they grow what's known as hyphae-like little tendrils-into the tuber. These spores travel miles on the wind to hide in the soil. According to the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru, "This fungus, Phytophthora infestans, remains among the world's most devastating crop diseases. With plant pathologist Eva Pell and veterinary scientist Channa Reddy, Pechous is studying how potatoes fend off the late blight fungus, cause of the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s. "It happens in plants too," says Pechous, "but the way it happens is almost completely unknown." In animals, it's called a hypersensitive response when certain cells recognize a pathogen and intensify the signal, triggering an immune response. To help fight this pest (cause of the 1840s Irish potato famine), Steve Pechous is studying the plant equivalent of an immune response. Gerald Lang and Jennifer Tucker, Penn State Digital Photography StudioĬheap chips? Not if the potato late blight fungus attacks. The way they respond to disease looks different, but actually both respond hypersensitively. ![]() "One of the main things I've learned," he says, "is that at the molecular level, plants and animals are much more similar than they are different. What's the potato equivalent of a sneeze?įor Steve Pechous, a graduate student in plant physiology, it's not a nonsense question.
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