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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Corvallis, Oregon » Horticultural Crops Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #255365
Title: Introduction to Oomycetes

Author
item FRY, W - Cornell University
item Grunwald, Niklaus - Nik

Submitted to: The Plant Health Instructor
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/7/2010
Publication Date: 12/15/2010
Citation: Fry, W.E., Grunwald, N.J. 2010. Introduction to Oomycetes. The Plant Health Instructor. DOI:10.1094/PHI-I-2010-1207-01. Available: http://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/intropp/PathogenGroups/Pages/IntroOomycetes.aspx

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: The oomycetes, also known as “water molds”, are a group of several hundred organisms that include some of the most devastating plant pathogens. The diseases they cause include seedling blights, damping-off, root rots, foliar blights and downy mildews. Some notable diseases are the late blight of potato, downy mildew of grape vine, sudden oak death, and root and stem rot of soybean. Because of their filamentous growth habit, nutrition by absorption, and reproduction via spores, oomycetes were long regarded by plant pathologists as lower fungi. However, as our understanding of evolutionary relationships has grown, it is now clear that this group of organisms is unrelated to the true fungi. This review presents the status of our current knowledge of Oomycetes and presents several key species and their importance in more detail.