A fungus is threatening the U.S. basil crop for both home growers and commercial operations.

"In the U.S., downy mildew on basil first reared its ugly head on a commercial farm in Florida in 2007," Margaret McGrath, associate professor in the department of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, told The Produce News. “It appears that other commercial growers also had it, but because it's new to the U.S., they didn’t know what it was when they first detected it.”

A short nine months ago, the Vidalia, GA, onion industry was looking trouble square in the eye. Torrential rains in December washed away plantings. Abnormally cold weather followed in January and February. March was too cool and too rainy. Growers wondered if the season could be salvaged.

Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets, the European-owned small-format retail chain making a splash in the West, has expanded a program that promises consumers farm-fresh produce in the store within 24 hours of its harvest.

Brendan Wonnacott, communications director for the Tesco-owned operation that is based in Southern California, told The Produce News, "We launched the program quietly last year because, as you can imagine, it's a hard thing to pull off."

MONTEREY, CA -- At the Produce Marketing Association's Foodservice Conference & Exposition, here, in July 2009, PMA President Bryan Silbermann announced a new collaborative initiative among three industry associations with the objective of doubling produce consumption in foodservice over the next decade.

The new South Carolina State Farmers Market & Agribusiness Center will open in phases beginning Aug. 16, Hugh Weathers, commissioner of agriculture, announced July 14. The market is located on Highway 321 in Lexington County.

The first phase will include the South Carolina Department of Agriculture's laboratory and consumer services facility, farmers sheds and administration building. That opening will coincide with the opening of private wholesale companies V.B. Hook & Co. Inc., Senn Brothers Inc. and Supersod Inc.

As a key expansion component at Al Harrison Co. in Nogales, AZ, on July 23, Thomas (T.J.) Bauer became the vice president of the company.

Mr. Bauer was previously the director of the Nogales office of L&M Cos. Inc., which is based in Raleigh, NC.