Jagger Harvey

Jagger Harvey
Clemson University | CU · College of Agriculture

UC Davis, PhD Genetics
Director of Global Research Initiatives College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences

About

122
Publications
47,781
Reads
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2,065
Citations
Additional affiliations
February 2008 - December 2008
University of Cambridge
September 2005 - February 2008
The Sainsbury Laboratory
Position
  • Senior Researcher
Education
September 1998 - June 2005
University of California, Davis
Field of study
  • Genetics
September 1994 - May 1998
Washington & Lee University
Field of study
  • Biology; Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Publications

Publications (122)
Article
Full-text available
The prevalence of aflatoxin and fumonisin was investigated in maize intended for immediate human consumption in Eastern Kenya at a time in 2010 when an aflatoxin outbreak was recognized. Samples were collected from people who brought their maize for processing at local commercial mills. Sites were selected using a geographical information system ov...
Article
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Cassava is an important root crop to resource-poor farmers in marginal areas, where its production faces drought stress constraints. Given the difficulties associated with cassava breeding, a molecular understanding of drought tolerance in cassava will help in the identification of markers for use in marker-assisted selection and genes for transgen...
Article
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Argonaute (AGO) proteins bind to small-interfering (si)RNAs and micro (mi)RNAs to target RNA silencing against viruses, transgenes and in regulation of mRNAs. Plants encode multiple AGO proteins but, in Arabidopsis, only AGO1 is known to have an antiviral role. To uncover the roles of specific AGOs in limiting virus accumulation we inoculated turni...
Article
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The genetic regulation of programmed cell death (PCD) is well characterized in animal systems, but largely unresolved in plants. This research was designed to identify plant genes that can suppress PCD triggered in plants by Fumonisin B1 (FB1). Agrobacterium rhizogenes was used to transform individual members of a cDNA library into tomato roots, wh...
Article
Sustainable School Feeding Programs (SFPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa play a vital role in addressing malnutrition and poor educational outcomes among children. It is critical to contextualize SFPs to local needs and resources, while retaining the twin universal goals of alleviating hunger and promoting education, and the associated strengthening of hea...
Article
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Insufficient storage practices and frequent infestations of insect pests pose significant obstacles to sesame production and storage, adversely affecting the quality and quantity of seeds. This forces farmers and traders to sell their crops at lower prices immediately after threshing to avoid market rejection caused by pests and mold damage during...
Article
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Citation: Alemayehu, S.; Abera, F.A.; Ayimut, K.M.; Harvey, J.; Mahroof, R.; Subramanyam, B.; Ulmer, J.; Edema, R. Abstract: Mycotoxins in sesame seeds pose a significant risk to both food safety and Ethiopia's economy. The purpose of this study was to determine the presence and concentrations of mycotoxins in sesame seeds kept on farms in Ethiopia...
Article
Chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.) is the most important winter season food legumes in Ethiopia. Despite being a major producer and consumer of chickpeas, Ethiopia experiences lower yields due to biotic and abiotic stresses, particularly insect pest infestations during storage. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of different storage technologies a...
Article
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Postharvest management is critical to attaining household food, nutrition, and income security. Hermetic grain storage bags offer an effective pesticide‐free way to protect stored grain against fungal and insect infestation. We evaluated articles indexed in the Web of Science that included experiments comparing the storage efficacy of conventional...
Article
Sesame seeds, being a crucial traditional oilseed crop in Ethiopia, face challenges related to storage and insect pests that can adversely affect their quality and quantity. Farmers often sell their sesame seeds immediately after harvest at lower prices due to concerns about pest damage during storage. This study aimed to assess the impact of diffe...
Article
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This survey aimed to investigate the extent of insect infestations, associated losses, and insect species abundance in farm-stored chickpea seeds across five chickpea growing districts in Ethiopia. Despite being the largest producer, consumer, and exporter of chickpea in Africa, insect pest infestations have caused significant losses to Ethiopia's...
Article
Maize gluten meal (MGM) is a by-product of maize starch and ethanol, produced by the wet milling process. Its high protein content makes it a preferred ingredient in feed. Given the high prevalence of mycotoxins in maize globally, they pose a significant challenge to use of MGM for feed: wet milling could concentrate certain mycotoxins in gluten co...
Article
Crop susceptibility to moisture content, quality of storage facilities in the farm contributes to fungal infections and mycotoxin contamination. Chickpea grain loss in many parts of the world has been due to inadequate and poor storage facilities, post-harvest activities leading to mycotoxins and fungal infections. The current research investigated...
Article
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Mycotoxins, such as aflatoxins, fumonisins, trichothecenes, and zearalenone, are increasing in visibility as a public health threat through both acute and chronic exposure in food. USAID through its Feed the Future program has sponsored research in Nepal on mycotoxin contamination and the correlated high levels of stunting in children under age fiv...
Article
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Sesame is an important oil crop for the Ethiopian economy. However, the lack of adequate storage facilities results in significant losses of sesame seeds. This study was designed to compare the effects of storage conditions and the subsequent impact on sesame seed germination, mold growth, and mycotoxin accumulation over the storage period. The eff...
Article
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Ethiopian subsistence farmers traditionally store their grain harvests, leaving them open to storage pests and fungi that can cause contamination of major staple crops. Applying the most effective strategy requires a precise understanding of the insect species, infestation rates, storage losses, and storage conditions in the various types of farmer...
Article
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A study was conducted using maize samples collected from different agroecological zones of Kenya (n = 471) and Tanzania (n = 100) during the 2013 maize harvest season to estimate a relationship between aflatoxin B1 concentration and occurrence with weather conditions during the growing season. The toxins were analysed by the ultra-high-performance...
Article
The genetic diversity of 132 samples of the perennial wild rice (Oryza longistaminata) populations from selected districts (Bagamoyo, Kibaha, Kilombero and Mbarali) in Tanzania was evaluated using twenty eight microsatellite markers. Genomic DNA was extracted using standard protocols. Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was carried out in a total react...
Article
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The emergence of commercial fish farming has stimulated the establishment of fish feed factories in Uganda. However, no information is available on the safety of the feed, mainly due to lack of mycotoxin testing facilities and weak regulatory systems. A study was carried out to examine fungal colonization and mycotoxin contamination in fish feed sa...
Article
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Like many other quality attributes, food safety tends to degrade after harvest, but unlike losses in quantity and many quality attributes, food safety losses are not readily observable by market actors. This implies the absence of incentives to address food safety losses specifically. To the extent that food safety is correlated with valued and obs...
Article
Chickpea is an economically important pulse produced by millions of smallholder farmers as a source of food, income and nutrition in Ethiopia. Mold infection and mycotoxin production can potentially lead to significant losses of chickpea during storage. Under laboratory conditions we tested comparative effects of hermetic and traditional storage st...
Article
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The prevalence and concentrations of three major mycotoxins, total aflatoxin (AFs), fumonisin (F), and zearalenone (ZEN), were determined on seven edible non-timber forest products (ENTFP) in Cameroon. A total of 210 samples consiting of 30 samples from each ENTFP commodity was collected from farmers and local markets in three agroecological zones...
Article
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Plant viral diseases are one of the major limitations in legume production within sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), as they account for up to 100% in production losses within smallholder farms. In this study, field surveys were conducted in the western highlands of Kenya with viral symptomatic leaf samples collected. Subsequently, next-generation sequencin...
Article
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Root necrosis similar to those of the cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) were observed on cassava in western provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR.Congo) in the early 2000’s. However molecular laboratory diagnosis were not able to detect any causative agent responsible for the attacks, hence, the disease related to these symptoms was n...
Article
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Soybean is a critical food and nutritional security crop in Rwanda. Promoted by the Rwandan National Agricultural Research System for both adults and as an infant weaning food, soybean is grown by approximately 40% of households. Soybean may be susceptible to the growth of mycotoxin-producing moulds; however, data has been contradictory. Mycotoxin...
Article
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Two closely related potyviruses, bean common mosaic virus (BCMV) and bean common mosaic necrosis virus (BCMNV), are regarded as major constraints on production of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in Eastern and Central Africa, where this crop provides a high proportion of dietary protein as well as other nutritional, agronomic, and economic bene...
Article
Different methods have been applied in controlling contamination of foods and feeds by the carcinogenic fungal toxin, aflatoxin, but nevertheless the problem remains pervasive in developing countries. Curcumin is a natural polyphenolic compound from the spice turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) that has been identified as an efficient photosensitiser for i...
Article
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The experimental performance and artificial neural network modeling of rice drying in BAU-STR dryer is presented in this paper. The dryer consists of a biomass stove as a heat source, a perforated inner bin and a perforated outer bin with annular space for grains, and a blower (1 hp) to supply heated air. The dryer capacity was 500 kg of freshly ha...
Article
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Soymilk is rich in nutrients and isoflavones, and could greatly promote nutrition and health. However, this product is not widely accepted due to an objectionable beany flavor. Several methods involving heat treatment and soaking in basic solutions prior to soymilk extraction have been reported to reduce the objectionable flavor. However, the effec...
Article
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Viral symptomatic groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) leaf samples were collected in the heterogeneous agro-ecosystem of the western highlands of Kenya. High throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was carried out on total plant RNA using the Illumina HiSeq platform. Subsequently, de novo assembly and sequence similarity searches identified the complete ge...
Article
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Abstract Background Aflatoxin contamination at pre- and post-harvest poses a serious challenge in achieving sustainable development goals on food security and food safety, in particular within the developing world. In Kenya, major outbreaks of aflatoxicoses have been reported and attributed to poor post-harvest storage practices. In this study, we...
Article
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Understanding the organisation of genetic diversity in a crop species is a key element for both the conservation and utilisation of its genetic resources. In the case of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L), Ethiopia is one of the secondary centers of diversity of this species. Hence, this study sought to improve our understanding of genetic diversit...
Article
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A new Macrolepiota species from the Aberdare Forest in Kenya is described and illustrated. The larger basidiomata with yellow brownish to brownish granular squamules, distinct umbo, larger basidia and smaller ellipsoid basidiospores form remarkable features that separate this species from previously published members belonging to the genus Macrolep...
Preprint
Full-text available
Plant viral diseases are one of the major limitations in legume production within sub Saharan Africa (SSA), as they account for up to 100 % in production losses within smallholder farms. In this study, field surveys were conducted in the western highlands of Kenya with viral symptomatic leaf samples collected. Subsequently, next-generation sequenci...
Article
Full-text available
Aspergillus flavus is the main producer of carcinogenic aflatoxins in agricultural commodities such as maize. This fungus occurs naturally on crops, and produces aflatoxins when environmental conditions are favorable. The aim of this study is to analyse the genetic variability among 109 A. flavus isolates previously recovered from maize sampled fro...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Bangladesh is an agriculture based country with paddy as the most important and main food stuff which is the fourth largest rice producer in the world in 2016-2017. Storage losses are also higher in Bangladesh than in other developing countries where better storage systems are available. Paddy generally stored by the farmers to meet their own consu...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this study is to determine the value of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as a diagnostic tool for aflatoxin contamination, specifically to rapidly predict levels of aflatoxin, either quantitatively or qualitatively, in ground maize. Maize was collected from inoculated field trials conducted across four sites in Kenya. Inoculated and uni...
Article
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Background Aphids are major vectors of plant viruses. Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and maize (Zea mays L.) are important crops that are vulnerable to aphid herbivory and aphid-transmitted viruses. In East and Central Africa, common bean is frequently intercropped by smallholder farmers to provide fixed nitrogen for cultivation of starch crop...
Conference Paper
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Paddy is the staple crop in Bangladesh. Harvested paddy contain 22 to 28% (wet basis) moisture content which need to be dried properly for reducing post-harvest losses. BAU-STR dryer would be an effective method as alternative to open sun drying of paddy for small holder farmers and traders. The performance study of BAU-STR dryer was conducted du...
Conference Paper
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Storage of rice is a crucial problem in Bangladesh, where storage loses occurred around 7-12%. A study was conducted to evaluate hermetic bag (GrainPro and PICS) as a safe storage technology for rice. Experiment laid out in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications and six treatments in the departmental laboratory. Treatments of th...
Article
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Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Westwood, 1856) (Greenhouse whitefly) is an agricultural pest of global importance. It is associated with damage to plants during feeding and subsequent virus transmission. Yet, global phylogenetic relationships, population structure, and estimation of the rates of gene flow within this whitefly species remain largely une...
Article
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Reader Comments The white paper reports the deliberations of a workshop focused on biotic challenges to plant health held in Washington, D.C. in September 2016. Ensuring health of food plants is critical to maintaining the quality and productivity of crops and for sustenance of the rapidly growing human population. There is a close linkage between...
Article
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A collection of 122 isolates of Magnaporthe oryzae, from nine sub-Saharan African countries, was assessed for virulence diversity and genetic relatedness. The virulence spectrum was assessed by pathotype analysis with a panel of 43 rice genotypes consisting of differential lines carrying 24 blast resistance genes (R- genes), contemporary African ri...
Article
Aflatoxin contamination (AC) in maize, caused by the fungal pathogen Aspergillus flavus (Link), starts at pre-harvest stage. Hence, interventions that reduce entry and development of A. flavus in the field are required. Trials were carried out at Seatondale and Igeri, to evaluate the effects of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer combinations, herea...