A fab bunch of talks for Session 1 Disease Management in Practice #PPATH2025
🌾 Helen Bates @niab-uk.bsky.social
🥔 Ashleigh Holmes @hutton.ac.uk
🧬 Aimee Fowkes - Fera x @newcastleuni.bsky.social
🍓 Avice Hall @herts.ac.uk

And on the fungal side, my first puffballs of the year.

And a rather deceptive plant: this is actually Lesser knapweed, but a rayed form, so it looks like Greater knapweed flowers on a Lesser knapweed plant!

And taking an empty screw-top 2ml tube to practice one-handed opening and closing.

Resistance evolution means we absolutely need more tools in the crop protection toolbox, but it also means those new tools must be designed and deployed with resistance in mind. Considering resistance risk and management in advance is far better than only reacting after it emerges.

We also consider what we have learned (sometimes the hard way!) about resistance management and IPM over almost six decades of single-site fungicide use, and what this means for the deployment and management of new measures to maximise durability.

We consider how the molecular mechanisms of resistance against fungicides, and mechanisms of fungal genome evolution more generally, could apply to potential RNAi resistance, and what this means for RNAi target selection and construct design.

Contributors include @melonamaranth.bsky.social, @dannagifford.bsky.social, @florianhartig.bsky.social, @gmpreston.bsky.social, @mfseidl.bsky.social, @pietrospanu.bsky.social.

This paper was the result of a workshop co-organised by @timbarra.bsky.social, Joris Alkemade and I, bringing together experts in RNAi, fungicides, AMR and fungal evolution.

Fungicide resistance is a big reason why we need alternative crop protection measures, but we must consider the risk of those other crop protection measures also selecting for resistance, especially for target-specific methods like RNAi.

#TheWinter10 part 3 (chickweed is behind the Shepherd's purse)