Several weeks ago, a plantclinic website visitor who read the slime mold factsheet (https://plantclinic.tamu.edu/helpful-factsheets/slime-mold ) shot me an email with a bunch of photos and a comment that why are they not photos of slime mold with brighter colors in the factsheet.  He kindly sent several of the photos (shared on this blog post) of those he took in his neck-of-the-woods of some brightly colored slime mold.   Why the diversity?  There are many types of slime mold. A good site to see and learn more of the various… Read More →

We at the TPDDL have the privilege of seeing many different types of plants and getting the opportunity to figure out what the problem might be.  The quality of a diagnosis is highly dependent on the quality of the submitted sample.  In most cases, we encourage folks to send their sample by overnight or next-day delivery to reduce time that a particular sample would be exposed to the elements.  In some cases, we even request that samples be sent in a cooler or kept cool with ice-packs. Occasionally,… Read More →

In light of the current budget situation in Texas, some changes will be instituted at the Texas Plant Disease Diagnostic lab in compliance with Texas AgriLife Extension Service partial cost recovery efforts (see former blog post).  The following changes will go into effect on JUNE 1, 2011: General plant disease diagnostic services and nematode detection assay fees will increase from $30  to $35. Specialized testing procedures will vary depending on the testing requested.  Please check out the fee schedule page on the plant clinic website. Typically the test… Read More →

In the last few days, we have gotten some inquiries that led me to have this little write up.  I have gotten several photographs of damage on tomatoes.  The damages are observed as sunken, tan to brown leaf spots. Typically these spots occur in interveinal (between veins) areas.  The same damage occurs on several different varieties of tomatoes.   These inquiries were coming from the Northeast and Central Texas region.  And many of these tomatoes were young and actively growing.  In fact, seedlings appeared to be more affected… Read More →