The corn smut fungus (Ustilago zeae or U. maydis) infects corn plants early in the season via damaged plant tissue. As the fungus matures, it goes on to form the bluish-gray, swollen galls you ...
Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Have you ever gleefully walked into your garden, anxiously anticipating your early summer sweet-corn harvest, only to find that ...
Huitlacoche is a fungus that consumes its host — corn — and transforms it into another food altogether. If you’ve never seen it before, it might be a startling sight. But look beyond the unfamiliar, ...
In tall rows of brambles or tomatoes, farm interns can't always see one another, but our yelps and shrieks carry. On a few occasions a giant tiger bee toting a paralyzed cicada had buzzed a person's ...
One summer day, I went through two of my Dad’s cornfields with a mission: eradicate the gray, bulbous growth that seemed to appear in every field, particularly in the Silver Queen field. I pulled ...
Corn smut in California. Photo by David Cohen/flickr/CC BY 2.0 An unsightly fungal disease called corn smut strikes fear in the hearts of American and Canadian farmers. When it appears as fleshy, ...
One evening last July, Nat Bradford walked along rows of White Bolita Mexican corn at his Sumter, S.C., farm, and nearly wept. All 1,400 of the corn plants had been overtaken almost overnight by corn ...
Have you ever gleefully walked into your garden, anxiously anticipating your early summer sweet-corn harvest, only to find that your ears have been replaced with a large, gray mass? Do not fret; this ...
One evening last July, Nat Bradford walked along rows of White Bolita Mexican corn at his Sumter, S.C., farm, and nearly wept. All 1,400 of the corn plants had been overtaken almost overnight by corn ...