First Report on the Occurrence of Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus in Tennessee.

In the summer of 2021, a field survey of several tomato-growing counties in Tennessee (TN) was conducted for plants exhibiting virus-like symptoms. While scouting in September in Grainger County, one of the largest areas under tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) production in TN, leaves from six tomato plants (cv. BHN 589) growing on a farm located near Rutledge were collected and subsequently stored at -80˚C.

Prevalence of Salmonella enterica in Flies on a Diversified Cattle and Fresh Produce Farm across Two Growing Seasons.

Abstract: Flies are a vector for spreading foodborne pathogens pertinent to fresh produce, such as Shiga toxigenic Escherichia coli and Salmonella; however, most studies focus on concentrated animal feeding operations, which do not reflect low-density animal farming practices that often adjoin fruit and vegetable acreage. In this study, we determined the prevalence of Salmonella in flies collected biweekly on an integrated animal and produce operation over two growing seasons. Eleven of 889 pooled samples tested positive for Salmonella.

Using Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling to Analyze Bee Visitation in East Tennessee Crops as an Indicator of Pollination Services Provided by Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.) and Native Bees.

This study investigated bee visitation on 10 agricultural crops grown on diverse small farms in Tennessee to determine the abundance of native bees and honey bees and the partitioning of visitation among crops. Summaries for each crop are used to generate mean proportions of bee visitation by categories of bees. This shows that native bee visits often occur as frequently, or in greater proportions than non-native honey bee visits.