The Deadly Plant Sneeze - Issue 25: Water
▻http://nautil.us/issue/25/water/the-deadly-plant-sneeze
A summer rain falling on a barley field is the very picture of vitality. The shower softens the dry ground; crops grow tall; grain fattens and is harvested to make bread, or beer, or feed for livestock. But zoom in close and you may witness a strikingly different scene: The same raindrops that bestow life can also spread disease and death. Just as the common cold can travel through a handshake or a cough, plant epidemics move in various ways—by breezes or bugs, soil or seeds. Many bacteria and some types of fungal spores also jump from leaf to leaf in splatters of rainwater, a plant’s version of a sneeze. These so-called rain-dispersed pathogens surround themselves in a slimy secretion called mucilage, which protects them but also prevents them from being picked up by wind. When a (...)