No More Crying Over Rotting Onions? Researchers Gain Insight Into Bacteria Threatening Vidalia Onion Production

Jun 30, 2023

The Vidalia onion is a trademarked variety of sweet onion that can only be grown in several counties in Georgia by law. These prized vegetables are currently threatened by the bacterial pathogen Pantoea ananatis, which severely damages the plant by rotting the onion bulbs and leaves. This results in substantial losses for onion growers in Georgia, as there are no disease resistant cultivars available. The plant toxin pantaphos, produced by the P. ananatis pathogen, causes the rotting symptoms in onion. More specifically, the eleven genes responsible for producing this toxin are grouped together in a cluster called HiVir (high virulence). However, most of the genes from the cluster have an unknown role in bacterial pathogenesis, so there is much more to discover about how this bacterium infects onion.

To combat this critical plant disease, Dr. Brian Kvikto and Dr. Bhabesh Dutta from the University of Georgia have developed an aggressive research program. A recent study led by Dr. Gi Yoon (Gina) Shin from Dr. Kvikto's lab has confirmed which genes in the HiVir cluster are essential and which genes contribute partially to this disease.

Published in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions (MPMI), the study found that this HiVir gene cluster is common in many onion-pathogenic P. ananatis strains, and natural mutations in these essential genes render them powerless to cause infection in onions. The lab developed a clever assay to isolate the toxin from the pathogen. Dr. Shin explains that application of this toxin onto other plants besides onions also causes lesions to form. "This suggests that the toxin produced by P. ananatis could have broad-spectrum activity, potentially targeting conserved function or pathways within the plant."

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.