Purdue University - The Cruz Lab

05/07/2026

How do tar spot epidemics really develop in corn fields?
Tar spot often starts almost invisibly; sometimes with few stromata across an entire field, yet weeks later severity can increase explosively. Until now, we’ve lacked a field‑scale, mechanistic explanation for how that transition occurs.
In a short video, we summarize a multi‑year, field‑validated study (Lane et al., Plant Disease, First Look) that combines high‑resolution field data with canopy‑explicit epidemiological modeling to show how tar spot epidemics:
• Establish at ultra‑low severity,
• Spread vertically through the canopy (often not bottom‑up), and
• Transition into rapid exponential intensification.
The work challenges long‑standing assumptions about foliar disease progression and lays a foundation for precision disease surveillance and future integration with digital and AI‑enabled detection tools.
▶️ Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAxM3bZ9TYg
📄 Lane et al., Plant Disease (First Look)
https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/.../10.../PDIS-07-25-1506-RE
Original image credit: Crop Protection Network See less

1 like. "Unraveling the Dynamics of Tar Spot Epidemics in Corn Fields"

12/04/2025

Purdue University researchers found that a subset of epidermal cells in plant leaves serves as early responders to chemical cues from bacterial pathogens and communicate this information to neighbors through a local traveling wave of calcium ions. The properties of this local wave differ from those....

11/11/2025

11/11/2025

A dry season can be devastating to harvests, putting both farmers' livelihoods and communities' food security at risk. Identifying the traits that make crops more drought-resistant is critical for developing hardier hybrids. Researchers at Purdue University's College of Agriculture are using cutting...

10/06/2025

Feeling very fortunate to have attended Barbara Valent’s retirement celebration at K-State. Beyond years of top-notch scientific collaboration, Barbara (and her partner in life and science, Forrest Chumley) have offered enduring generosity, support, and friendship. I was honored to share a few heartfelt words, and it was a joy to reconnect with scientific heroes, collaborators, and mentees from my time at K-State. I had an absolute blast!

06/13/2025

🌽 Huge thanks to Dr. César Falconí (ESPE, Ecuador) for his excellent talk at Purdue! Through a USDA NIFA funded project, we are working together to address corn tar spot, a threat to crops in the Midwest and the Americas. hashtag 🌎🌱

06/03/2025

Thrilled our paper on optical sensing & epidemio modelling is out in Phytopathology – First Look! 🌿📊

Huge thanks to all co-authors for 3.5 yrs of teamwork — and special shoutout to Alexey Mikaberidze & Nik Cunniffe for their inspiring leadership!
👉 https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTO-11-24-0359-FI

01/23/2025

Thanks to the North Central IPM Center for the kind invitation and opportunity to contribute! Feel free to check out the webinar here:

This presentation will delve into innovative approaches in phytopathometry, epidemiology, and microbiology, with a focus on tar spot disease in corn. Key top...

01/10/2025

Thrilled and honored to be part of this incredible global initiative! 🌍✨ 💪

Tar spot disease is spreading both in the corn belt and internationally. Take a look under the microscope and over the globe with Purdue Botany and Plant Pathology's Goodwin's lab and Purdue University - The Cruz Lab to better understand how tar spot's appearance and microbiology changes across the world. https://purdueag.exposure.co/revealing-tar-spot-microbiology

01/06/2025

🚀 Excited to share our latest open-access publication!

We present a deep learning approach using RGB imaging and a stromata contour detection algorithm to improve leaf-level analysis of corn tar spot severity.

📄 Read the full study: https://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/epdf/10.1094/PDIS-12-23-2702-RE