Common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench), a dicotyledonous plant in family Polygonaceae, is recognized as a valuable nutritional source of fatty acids, phytosterols, phenolic compounds and tocopherols. It has received increased attention as a so-called “functional food” in China. During scouting of common buckwheat in August and September 2018, unfamiliar symptoms were observed on leaves in 20 fields in Yanchi County, Ningxia, China, with 35% incidence and moderate to high severity across the field. Brown spots most commonly occurred on lower leaves of buckwheat beginning in late July. The spots were initially light brown with an irregular border and pale brown center. Older spots were almost dark brown, and often coalesced although spots were restricted by veins. Symptomatic leaf samples were collected in late-August, and washed with flowing water for 2 min. Tissue samples were excised from the margins of the lesions and sterilized with 75% ethanol for 20 s and 0.1% NaClO for 2 min, before being rinsed relative humidity. At 6 days postinoculation, all the inoculated leaves showed symptoms identical to those described above. While no symptoms were observed on the control plants. The fungus was reisolated and identified as B. zeae based on morphological features and DNA sequence analysis, it was identical to the original isolate to satisfy Koch’s postulates. B. zeae has been reported to be pathogenic on Acer truncatum (Sun et al., 2011), Helianthus tuberosus (Zhao et al., 2017) and Hemarthria altissima (Xue et al., 2016) in China. To our knowledge this is the first report of B. zeae causing leaf spot on F. TR-107 purchase esculentum in China. This fungal pathogen represents a severe threat and has the potential to cause yield losses of F. esculentum, so further research is required to define effective management strategies.Inoculum production is an important part of conducting research with soilborne Phytophthora species. One common method is to incubate Phytophthora cultures in nutrient-amended vermiculite. However, inoculum levels often vary among batches of inoculum even when production methods remain the same, and incubation typically takes ≥ 6 weeks, increasing risks for delayed experiments if the resulting inoculum level is too low. A more reliable and rapid method is needed for future studies. Experiments were conducted to (1) determine inoculum levels of P. cinnamomi and P. plurivora after incubation in V8 juice-amended vermiculite (standard method); (2) evaluate how inoculum viability was affected by air drying; (3) develop a modified method that takes less time to produce a vermiculite-based inoculum; and (4) evaluate the effect of storage on inoculum viability. Results showed that the standard method produced inoculum levels from 716 to 1808 colony forming units/g and that drying to 1 day generally reduced inoculum viability. Although inoculum levels from the modified method were lower than the standard method, inoculum levels for each isolate were more consistent between trials and the modified method was 6 to 8 weeks faster. Production with the modified method can also be easily scaled up by infesting a greater volume of vermiculite with additional cultures of Phytophthora. These results are important because they help explain variability in soilborne Phytophthora inoculum production and storage, and provide a new method for producing inoculum more quickly.Starting from the May to August 2020 (average humidity 76.6% and temperature 25.2°C in Taipei), Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) plants on the campus of National Taiwan University (25°01’05.4″N 121°32’36.6″E) exhibited leaf rusts caused by Phakopsora ampelopsidis (Tzean et al., 2019) and leaf spots caused by an unknown pathogen. The leaf spots appeared reddish to brown color and mostly irregular to round shape on the simple and trifoliate leaflets (Supplemental Figure 1A-C). The leaf spots were surface-disinfected with 1% NaOCl for 30 seconds, and the margin of healthy and infected tissues was cut and placed onto water agar, which were incubated at room temperature. Hyphae grown out from leaf spots were sub-cultured on potato dextrose agar (PDA), and the majority of isolates exhibited white colony with black pycnidial conidiomata embedded in PDA. The pycnidial conidiomata of two-week-old has an average diameter of 463±193 μm (n=30) and the sizes of α-conidia were 5.71±0.49 μm in length and 2.42±0.32 μon ivy such as P. ampelopsidis may also infect close-related crops like grape (Vitis vinifera L.) and D. tulliensis has been known to infect kiwifruits (Actinidia chinensis) and cocoa (Theobroma cacao) (Bai et al. 2016; Yang et al. 2018), the emergence of D. tulliensis should be aware to avoid potential damage to economic crops.Frogeye leaf spot (FLS), caused by the fungal pathogen Cercospora sojina K. Hara, is a foliar disease of soybean (Glycine max L. (Merr.)) responsible for yield reductions throughout the major soybean producing regions in the world. In the United States, management of FLS relies heavily on the use of resistant cultivars and in-season fungicide applications, specifically within the class of quinone outside inhibitors (QoIs), which has resulted in the development of fungicide resistance in many states. In 2018 and 2019, 80 isolates of C. sojina were collected from six counties in Georgia and screened for QoI fungicide resistance using molecular and in vitro assays, with resistant isolates being confirmed from three counties. Additionally, 50 isolates, including a “baseline isolate” with no prior fungicide exposure, were used to determine the percent reduction of mycelial growth to two fungicides, azoxystrobin and pyraclostrobin, at six concentrations 0.0001, 0.001, 0.01, 0.1, 1, and 10 g ml-1. Mycelial growth observed for resistant isolates varied significantly from both the sensitive isolates and the baseline isolate for azoxystrobin concentrations of 10, 1, 0.1, and 0.01 g ml-1 and for pyraclostrobin concentrations of 10, 1, 0.1, 0.01 and 0.001 g ml-1. Moreover, 40 isolates were used to evaluate pathogen race on six soybean differential cultivars by assessing susceptible or resistant reactions. Isolate reactions suggested 12 races of C. sojina present in Georgia, four of which have not been previously described. Species richness indicators (rarefaction and abundance-based coverage estimator – ACE) indicated that within-county C. sojina race numbers were undersampled in the present study, suggesting the potential for the presence of either additional undescribed races or known but unaccounted for races in Georgia. However, no isolates were pathogenic on differential cultivar ‘Davis’, carrying the Rcs3 resistance allele, suggesting the gene is still an effective source of resistance in Georgia.