Pests and burps are a family of plant diseases that destroy a large number of trees, fruits, and vegetables each year. Some of these diseases, like some of the diseases that people get, are caused by bacteria. Many other pests and burps are caused by certain types of plants called fungi. (You can read about bacteria and fungi in separate articles.) Pests and rots are more difficult to cure than diseases that make people sick. A blight, like the blight of apples, cannot be cured. It can only be controlled.
A blight or rot is controlled by burning all the plants that have become infected with the disease. All other plants growing nearby are sprayed with certain chemicals that can prevent the spread of the disease. An infestation or rot can cause a plant’s leaves to turn yellow, brown, or black. A blight or rot will cause flowers to drop and die, fruit to wilt, and cause roots and stems to soften and decompose. American brown rot is one of the worst diseases that attacks fruit orchards.
Each year, this rot destroys hundreds of thousands of bushels of peaches, plums, cherries, and apricots. The United States government has spent millions of dollars to discover how farmers can combat different pests and burps. A plague of potatoes caused a great famine in Ireland just over a hundred years ago. The Irish people were starving at the time, and many of them left Ireland and came to America because this blight had ruined the potato crop. Another pest is the chestnut pest. This disease has destroyed almost all the chestnut trees in America
