Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab

09/24/2026

It is with great sadness that I share news of the passing of Dr. Larry Barnes on Saturday 9/19/2026.
Dr. Barnes was a professor & Extension Specialist and served as the 1st director of the Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab till his retirement in 2008. -KO

Celebrate the life of Larry Barnes, leave a kind word or memory and get funeral service information care of Laurel Land Funeral Home & Memorial Park.

08/20/2026

20260819 These photos were received over a month ago from CEA Jason W. These are photos from several melon fields and CEA notices that they "all seem to have patches that looks like these". What is going on with these watermelon plants? My response was that I was unsure but I stated that several things that can contribute to those kinds of symptoms. I did request for him to take some close up photos of stems and base of vine, and if possible - sent samples to the TX Plant Clinic for confirmatory diagnosis. Then I also shared with him 4 plant diseases that I thought it could be. Can you guess what I might have suggested to be the issue? -KO

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

08/15/2026

Happy Friday (20260814)! Thank you to all that came by the TX PlantClinic booth at the TNLA Expo 2026 to say hello. Unfortunately, I was not at the trade show but did do a couple of education sessions on Tuesday. Also glad to meet up with some former students. I am thankful to have my colleagues and leaders in AgriLife supporting us at this Expo. Also very thankful for Amy Graham, President & CEO of TNLA, for her support over the years. Congratulations on her upcoming retirement.
Y’all have a great fun, safe and healthy weekend. -KO Kevin Ong
Nursery/Landscape EXPO
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

08/07/2026

Happy Friday (20260807)! Just got back from the American Phytopathological Society PLANT HEALTH 2026 meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. There was a contingent of Aggies at this meeting: current students as well as former students. It was good to visit with former students who are now having their own students. Also, proud of Connor and Maddie as they shared their work in the poster session. Professional scientific meeting such as these gives us a venue and opportunity to share and learn from each other - new things that are being studied in the area of plant pathology. Also, got a change to just visit parts of the town.
Next week, Connor and Courtney will be at the TNLA Expo 2026 in San Antonio. Come by the Plant Clinic booth on education row if you are attending.
Have a great fun, safe and healthy weekend. & Congratulations to all the Aggies that are graduating tomorrow! -KO Kevin Ong
The American Phytopathological Society (APS)
Texas A&M PLPM BESC

07/24/2026

Happy Friday (20260724)! Last Thursday, I was on the air (KAMU radio) with my friend, Stephen Brueggerhoff who is the Brazos County Extension Horticulture Agent and the host of the radio show "Garden Success". This is the "inaugural" segment of "Ask the Plant Doctor" on this show that runs on Thursdays at noon to 1pm. "Ask the Plant Doctor" on Garden Success will hopefully happen on a monthly basis on every 3rd Thursday of the month. In August, Head Diagnostician Hannah Ayala will be joining Stephen to ask your questions and to share about what we have been seeing, hearing and getting at the Plant Clinic. So if you are in Aggieland, tune in to Garden Success on KAMU 90.1FM on the 3rd thursday of the month to ask those burning plant health questions.
This show is also streamed. You can listen in live at https://kamu.tamu.edu/radio/listen-live/
and find past episodes at https://kamu.tamu.edu/radio/radio-programs/garden-success/
Have a great, fun, safe and healthy weekend. -KO
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
KAMU Public Broadcasting

07/16/2026

Helping out with live radio show on KAMU - Garden Success “Ask the Plant doctor…” hopefully this will be a monthly engagement with staff from the TPDDL-CS. I believe the next one up is on August 20 with Head Diagnostician Hannah Ayala joining Garden Success host Stephen Brueggerhoff.

07/08/2026

20260708 Late last month, Patricia H. sent these photos from the Dallas-Fort Worth area wondering WHAT is wrong with her rose bush. She also provide some observations:
- Yellow leaves with black spots.
- The growth of weak, green branches with small maroon leaves at the ends.
- Thorns that look different from regular rose thorns.
Here is part of response:
I noted that there were at least 2 problems that I saw in the photos. One is likely to be Rose rosette disease and the other is exhibiting symptoms consistent with black spot of roses.
To learn more about these diseases, check out AgriLIfe Extension factsheet at
https://agrilifelearn.tamu.edutype in "rose" in the search bar.
-KO

07/01/2026

20260701 Here are some photos of 'Dorsett' apples that were sent by County Agent Corrie B. The information include. " ...tree is loaded up with fruit and is very healthy." But there were rotting spots on the fruit and he was wondering WHAT did I think that could be?. He did make a guess that it is Bitter Rot...and he was correct.
Bitter Rot is a disease of apples caused by the fungus Colletotrichum spp. It is a disease that thrives in warm and humid conditions. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to remedy the fruit at this stage. Management of this disease is sanitation (cleaning up the diseased plant material) and fungicide applications as a preventative. Thought no apple cultivars are known to be immune to this disease, there are cultivars that are more resistant than others.

06/26/2026

Happy Friday (20260626)! Last week, the National Association for Plant Breeding (NAPB) 2026 annual meeting was held in College Station. A former student stopped by to visit. Through her, I found out about this field tour celebrating Pioneer Hi-Bred's(a Corteva Agrisciences company) 100 years in plant breeding. A couple of REEU-IPMB (Research and Extension Experience for Undergraduates at the Interface of Plant, Microbial and Bioenvironmental Sciences) and a grad student joined me to brave the hot weather to check out the very interesting living exhibits. It was amazing to see the various technological and genomic progress made over a 100 year period. Earlier cultivars were less resistant to various diseases on that particular crop. We got to see the evolution of corn, soybean and sorghum at this field tour. Thank you to Dr. Qianni D**g for the invitation! -KO

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service
Corteva Agriscience

06/24/2026

20260624 This photos was emailed by CEA Lonnie J. indicating that the homeowner has been "disposing diseased leaves" of this rose plant. Also noted was that homeowner had been treating with fungicide but it keeps getting worse. WHAT is it and WHAT is going on? From the photo, it looked like a bad case of black spot disease on a susceptible rose cultivar. Unfortunately, we did not have the cultivar name nor did we have the type of fungicides that were used, including when and how they were used. It also just happened that we have a Extension factsheet (PLPM-PU-049) on this fungal disease of roses: https://bit.ly/44kDEAs
Nonetheless, this is another year where it seems that many parts of Texas is wetter, humid and somewhat milder. It is a good year for diseases. In the case of blackspot, it is very likely that multiple applications of fungicide product must be used at the proper timing to help prevent new infections. A challenge, but not impossible. I would think that with this particular situation, some pruning out of infected plant parts and sanitation (cleaning out diseased plant debris, along with judicious use of fungicide can help to manage this disease. -KO