A new plant disease believed never seen before in the history of U.S. agriculture has been detected by University of California vegetable crop scientists in the Salinas Valley. Fennel, a fleshy basal bulb plant favored by East Coast Italian consumers, had been relatively free of disease problems until late last year, when area growers noticed that their plants were slowly decaying and turning black, reports Steve Koike, a vegetable crops farm advisor in Salinas. Koike says the condition is caused by a fungus that was probably brought to California on infested seed from a Mediterranean country. Because it is in the same family as fennel, California's parsley crop, particularly the Salinas Valley variety, also could succumb to the introduced fungus, he says. Since there are no registered fungicides or biological controls for fighting this new fungus, UC researchers have begun to explore ways to deal with the problem, Koike says.