Eastern spruce dwarf mistletoe, Arceuthobium pusillum, is a flowering plant which parasitizes black spruce, Picea mariana, and is the causal agent of its most serious disease. This parasite enjoys a broad range, thriving throughout the southern Canadian provinces, from Minnesota east to Maine and south to Pennsylvania. However, it is rarely found in New Jersey,…
Apple Proliferation Phytoplasma (APP) is a bacterial disease affecting mostly apples although pear trees with proliferation symptoms have been identified, but it has not been positively confirmed that they are suffering from APP. Apple cultivars seem to vary in terms of the degree of their reaction to the disease, Belle de Boskoop, Gravenstein, Starking, Golden Delicious and…
Plum Pox Virus (PPV) is a pathogen with the potential to devastate populations of peach, plum and other stone fruit trees. The United States and Canada maintain strict protocols and implement zero tolerance regarding discoveries of PPV in any nurseries or orchards. Aggressive and effective, but costly, eradication efforts have taken place in Pennsylvania, New…
The pathogen that causes boxwood blight, Calonectria pseudonaviculata, is able to infect every species in the Buxaceae family. A recent article in Plant Health Progress, authored by Dr. Jim LaMondia of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES), states that both Allegheny spurge, Pachysandra procumbens, and the more commonly planted Japanese spurge, Pachysandra terminalis, are potential hosts for…
