Work Package 2 Delivering Resilience to Biotic Stress
Biotic threats typically cause grain yield losses in the range 10 to 25%, even after the correct application of integrated control options. Improving the resilience of wheat production systems to biotic threats would help safeguard the yields of this major cereal crop.
Work Package 2 will focus on major UK, European and global biotic threats including, stem rust, wheat blast, Fusarium Head Blight, Septoria Leaf Blotch, take-all root disease, yellow rust and two aphid species (Rhopalosiphum padi and Sitobion avenae) that transmit various viruses. We aim to:
- deliver molecular targets in wheat and in major wheat pests and pathogens, which can be exploited to sustain future productivity
- identify and characterise wheat germplasm, and genes, which will boost wheat’s natural immunity
- functionally identify pathogen genes that are important for wheat infection
- develop and deploy state of the art surveillance strategies to enable rapid detection, identification and response to existing and emerging threats to UK and global wheat production
