Fungi Share More than a Taste for Cocoa

Two of the most troubling pests for cocoa farmers, witches' broom and frosty pod rot, were thought to be very different types of fungi. The morphology of the two is quite different; one lives in the branches and forms structural shoots and fruiting bodies, the other forms a cottony coat on the pod and has no apparent fruiting bodies.

Some researchers suspected that the two pathogens might be related because of similar symptomology. Modern DNA analysis of the fungi confirmed that they were not only closely related, but that the two form a new genus, yet to be named.

Link: Fungal Threats to Cocoa Share an Ancient History from the Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture

Posted by Eric La Fountaine at 2:52 PM on December 5, 2005

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