Investment

The Australian agriculture industry faces constant threats from diseases caused by fungal pathogens which can lead to yield loss and a reduction in profit margin. While advancements in crop genetics, chemical and cultural control strategies have helped mitigate some of these problems, pathogens will continue to evolve and overcome existing control strategies or present an exotic incursion risk to the industry. The Centre For Crop and Disease Management (CCDM) continues to generate innovative research that enables the agriculture industry to reduce the impact of crop diseases. The opportunity to exchange knowledge with the GRDC International Visiting Fellow Dr Thorsten Langner (Max Planck, Germany), an emerging expert in cereal blast diseases and pathogen evolution, enables the CCDM and the Australian cereal industry to better prepare for the incursion of exotic diseases such as wheat blast and the emergence of highly virulent pathogen strains through pathogen monitoring, genomic-based evolutionary studies, variety testing and the modelling of effectors, molecules produced by the pathogen that manipulate the plant metabolism to favour infection.