The tomato late blight pandemic of 2009 made late blight into a household term in much of the eastern United States. Many home gardeners and many organic producers lost most if not all of their tomato crop, and their experiences were reported in the mainstream press. Some CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) could not provide tomatoes to their members. In response, many questions emerged: How did it happen? What was unusual about this event compared to previous late blight epidemics? What is the current situation in 2012 and what can be done? It's easiest to answer these questions, and to understand the recent epidemics of late blight, if one knows a bit of the history of the disease and the biology of the causal agent, Phytophthora infestans.

Basil (Ocimum spp.) is one of the most economically important and widely grown herbs in the world. Basil downy mildew, caused by Peronospora belbahrii, has become an important disease in sweet basil (O. basilicum) production worldwide in the past decade. Global sweet basil production is at significant risk to basil downy mildew because of the lack of genetic resistance and the ability of the pathogen to be distributed on infested seed. Controlling the disease is challenging and consequently many crops have been lost. In the past few years, plant breeding efforts have been made to identify germplasm that can be used to introduce downy mildew resistance genes into commercial sweet basils while ensuring that resistant plants have the correct phenotype, aroma, and tastes needed for market acceptability. Fungicide efficacy studies have been conducted to evaluate current and newly developed conventional and organic fungicides for its management with limited success. This review explores the current efforts and progress being made in understanding basil downy mildew and its control.

Downy mildew, caused by Peronospora belbahrii, is a new disease of basil (Ocimum spp.) in the United States. In 2009, different basil species, cultivars, and advanced breeding lines of sweet basil (30 in total) were evaluated for susceptibility to basil downy mildew in field trials in southern and northern New Jersey. Popular commercial sweet basil cultivars such as Martina, Nufar, and Poppy Joe were among the most susceptible to downy mildew. Symptoms and sporulation of P. belhahrii on Ocimum ×citriodorum and O. americanum cultivars were present but far less than on most O. basilicum cultivars evaluated. The cultivars Spice, Blue Spice, and Blue Spice Fil were the least susceptible to basil downy mildew with no visible symptoms. Similar results were observed in both field trials. This is the first report of potential resistance in Ocimum spp. to basil downy mildew. Observations from this study show that the development of resistant cultivars may be possible. Selection criteria such as foliar morphology, plant architecture as well as the presence of secondary metabolites are being examined as potential traits for developing downy mildew resistant basil cultivars.

Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) is one of the most economically important culinary herbs in the world, yet global production has become increasingly challenging due to the destructive disease downy mildew (Peronospora belbahrii). Although multiple sources of resistance have been identified, there are no resistant sweet basil cultivars with a commercially acceptable chemotype and phenotype available. The commercial basil cultivar Mrihani (MRI) was identified as resistant and crossed with a Rutgers University susceptible sweet basil inbred line (SB22) to generate a full-sibling family. To determine the mode of inheritance for resistance to downy mildew in basil, six related generations of the MRI × SB22 family were evaluated using a disease severity index (DSI) at northern and southern New Jersey locations over 2 years. All siblings in the F1 and BC1P2 generations were resistant (0.33 > DSI) providing strong evidence that inheritance of resistance from MRI was conferred by dominant alleles. Segregation ratios in the F2 and backcross to the susceptible parent (BCP1) generations demonstrated chi-square goodness of fit to the two-gene complementary (F2: P = 0.11, BC1P1: P = 0.04) and recessive epistatic (F2: P = 0.03, BC1P1: P = 0.63) models. Further analyses of gene effects using a weighted six-parameter scaling test provided evidence that nonallelic additive × additive and additive × dominant gene effects were highly significant (P < 0.001) and resistance reducing. This is the first report of heritable genetic resistance that can be introduced to sweet basil without the issue of sterility barriers. Plant breeding strategies using the MRI × SB22 family should exploit dominant gene action and remove recessive, resistance-reducing alleles from the population.

The effect of preharvest application of a newly developed second-generation harpin product (2G-Harpin) on shelf life of fresh-cut lettuce (Lactuca sativa) was investigated. The lettuce plants were grown in three locations in the United States: Watsonville, CA, Cedarville, NJ, and Yuma, AZ, and treated 5 days before harvest at 140, 280, and 420 g·ha−1 (30, 60, and 90 mg·L−1). Lettuce processed and bagged were stored at 1 to 3 °C and evaluated for quality for 20 days. Lettuce from California treated with 2G-Harpin at 280 to 420 g·ha−1 consistently showed better visual quality and lower microbial population than the control. Overall results in New Jersey showed no major differences among treatments. In Arizona, microbial population was lower and visual quality was higher in lettuce treated at 280 and 420 g·ha−1 during part of the storage period. In further experimentation, we examined the phenolic content of lettuce harvested 1 and 7 days after treatment with 2G-Harpin. The results showed that phenolic content was higher in all treated lettuce than in the control lettuce after 24 h. Six days later, the levels fell back to the initial stage. Antioxidants capacity increased by 40% in head leaves when plants were treated with 280 and 420 g·ha−1 2G-Harpin, but no change was observed in outer leaves. Overall, it was revealed that a field application of 2G-Harpin can improve quality of fresh-cut lettuce under environmental conditions that need to be determined. Our results with phenolic content and antioxidant activity suggested that improvement in quality is probably the result of alteration of metabolites' composition and demonstrated that increased phenolics do not correlate with lower quality of fresh-cut products.