By Cynthia Hollenbeck and Elle Ciaciuch O’Neill
Sarah Kostick, Ph.D., is making great strides in the world of apple breeding at Washington State University. By investigating resistance/susceptibility to fire blight in apples to enable more efficient development of apple varieties with resistance to fire blight, she has found that specific genomic regions (also called genetic loci) are associated with resistance, and much more.
Fire blight is a devastating bacterial disease that affects a range of apple cultivars (varieties). This disease has the potential to cause tree death and, depending on the year, can destroy entire orchards. Fire blight, caused by the bacterium Erwinia amylovora, can infect … » More …
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