Great British Bioscience — Food, famine and fungi Ustilago maydis is a fungus...

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Food, famine and fungi

Ustilago maydis is a fungus that infects maize crops and causes the disease corn smut. In these images you can see the corn smut fungus (green) infecting a maize leaf (red). This infection will cause large plant ‘tumors’ and can eventually result in plant death.

Diseases like this pose a major threat to modern agriculture and therefore understanding fungal plant pathogens is of huge importance. 

BBSRC-funded scientists from The University of Exeter hope to understand the complex interplay between this fungal pathogen and its plant host. This knowledge will then help in the development of novel fungicides that can stop crop infection and keep food on our forks.

Images and research from Professor Gero Steinberg at the University of Exeter.

For more information on his research go to: http://bit.ly/1sbhNCo

For more plant related blog posts go to: http://tmblr.co/ZtJ7bq16IST19r

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science bioscience BBSRC BBSRC20 fungus agriculture plant disease corn smut maize The University of Exeter fungicides

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