Pickles are in a pickle: cucumbers stricken by disease

Downy mildew, a disease caused by a fungus, is spreading rapidly across the US, threatening the crop of pickling cucumbers. The disease is mutating rapidly, overcoming the natural resistance of the plants, and the pesticides used against it. Scientists are rushing to breed resistant new hybrid varieties, but face declining funding and manpower. This is a modern horror story, paralleling the disasters faced by bananas and olives.

Geo
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/12/14/672229450/scientists-are-fighting-for-the-stricken-pickle-against-this-tricky-disease?fbclid=IwAR2mtTdi3bFWVw22Fz9JjD0M5AznN3n42TYLojsipTZiBFz1a2AQLrU8qds

I switched to zucchini for cuke in all pickling iterations except lacto-fermented.

Downy Mildew is what killed off many hop-growing regions of New York, Michigan, and Minnesota.
It has taken until a few years ago that these geographic areas have resumed successful production of hops. {Some Chicagoans report growing hops in their backyard - but hardly enough for commercial situations.}

Exactly right pudgym29. New York State used to be prime hop territory. After downy hit here, production was moved to eastern Washington State and other dry areas where downy has a much harder time getting started. Sacramento, where I grew up, had a couple of huge hop farms.

Hops are returning to NYS. Just down I-87 south of me near the border, is a new one acre-ish hop plantation. I don't know whether re-establishment is based on resistant varieties (as in some new wine grape-growing regions), or on newly acceptable pesticides (which, as with grapes) is only a short-term fix. But it's interesting to observe.

Geo