Understanding evolution of fungicide resistance in wheat blast field populations in Brazil; can we learn lessons for future disease management?

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Some diseases are becoming very difficult to control due to lack of host resistance and limited availability of crop protection products. Resistance, tighter regulations and a slowing pipeline of new products are reducing the range of available chemical classes. This has lead to a greater dependence of compounds with fewer modes of action and, subsequently, increases the selective pressure for further cases of resistance. In order to increase the shelf life of new and currently available actives, evolution-smart integrated pest management strategies are needed.This project will focus on the plant pathogen Pyricularia graminis-tritici (Pygt), the causal agent of wheat blast, an important fungal disease in Brazil that is very difficult to control, with several groups of fungicides (e.g. sterol demethylase, quinone outside and succinate dehydrogenase inhibitors) having become ineffective. Wheat blast has been a major disease across central and southern Brazil and was first described in Paraná State in 1985. Following the emergence of wheat blast in Bangladesh in 2016, it has further spread into India in 2017. These Asian strains are the same as that of Brazil due to contaminated seed import, and the disease is expected to move into Pakistan, South East Asia and Africa and is expected to impact food security, welfare and economic growth of millions of undernourished people. To improve disease control, a better understanding of the epidemiology, the fungicide sensitivity status and disease management strategies are needed. In this project we will focus on all three aspects using the lastest spore trapping technology, fungicide pheno- and genotyping assays as well as a fungicide target protein expression system, enabling to investigate the impact of target mutations on enzyme function and fungicide binding. These tools are generic and can be applied for other plant pathogens.