Taxonomy and Identification of Principal Foliar Nematode Species ( and ).

Nematodes are Earth's most numerous multicellular animals and include species that feed on bacteria, fungi, plants, insects, and animals. Foliar nematodes are mostly pathogens of ornamental crops in greenhouses, nurseries, forest trees, and field crops. Nematode identification has traditionally relied on morphological and anatomical characters using light microscopy and, in some cases, scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Chia: Host Status for and Activity of Plant Extracts.

Chia ( L.) seeds are used for food, drinks, oil, and animal feed, and all plant parts are employed in traditional medicine. The growing demand for the seed has created a need for improved disease management.

Characterization of (Nematoda: Heteroderidae) from Indiana with molecular phylogenetic analysis of the genus.

In the summer of 2016, a field of corn () in Spencer County, Indiana was observed with heavily stunted plants, and from the affected roots a large number of cysts were recovered. Soil samples were submitted to one of us (JF), who extracted the nematode cysts and sent them to the USDA-ARS, Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory (MNGDBL), Beltsville, MD for morphological and molecular identification. Cysts and the recovered second-stage juveniles (J2) that were examined morphologically conformed to the measurements of , the goose cyst nematode originally described from Tennessee, USA in 2010.

Improvement of long segment ribosomal PCR amplification for molecular identification of associated with beech leaf disease.

Generating DNA markers for microscopic plant parasitic nematodes can be especially difficult if only a few valuable, tiny specimens are available. Providing a reliable maximum amount of unambiguous genetic information from single nematodes is especially important when identifying damaging, regulated nematodes of importance to trade where a few nucleotide differences in diagnostic markers are significant. There are many possible reasons for difficulty amplifying unpurified nematode DNA for long range PCR followed by direct sequencing.