Exploiting soil microbiomes for development of natural fungicides targeting P. infestans

马铃薯晚疫病是英国农作物面临的最具破坏性的疾病之一。如果不治疗，它可以在感染后两周内摧毁庄稼。据估计，该病每年造成35亿GB的直接损失和控制成本，仅在欧盟和英国就有8亿GB。控制疫病需要英国所有作物中使用最多的杀菌剂，种植者平均使用10种或最多20种处理来确保产量(而其他主要作物使用1-3种杀菌剂处理)。合成化学品的广泛使用正在导致抗性积累和广泛的环境破坏。鉴于当今所有的解决方案要么面临抗性积累的风险，要么面临移除调节剂的风险，现在需要新的解决方案来防止抗性品种的传播，维护未来的作物安全，并满足提高农业效率的需求。使用尖端合成生物学、定向进化、机器学习和生物信息学方法的组合，我们的目标是对英国10个马铃薯农场的土壤微生物群进行分析，并确定5种新型细菌衍生杀菌剂来对抗马铃薯晚疫病菌。_针对这种全球主要病原体的新杀菌剂的发现将为全球主要农业参与者的进一步投资提供一个令人信服的案例。总体而言，我们的目标是为种植者提供更有效、更可持续的作物保护选择，以防止晚疫病的发生，并保护英国的马铃薯产业未来。这一雄心与英国植物科学研究战略一致，旨在开发更好、更绿色的土壤管理实践，并将支持农民实现英国提高生产率和减少耕作对环境的影响的雄心，以实现可持续的马铃薯生产。

Potato late blight is one of the most damaging diseases facing England's crops. Untreated, it can devastate crops within 2 weeks of infection. Each year the disease is estimated to cause £3.5Bn in direct losses and control costs, including £800Mn in EU and UK alone.Managing blight requires the most fungicide applications of any crop in the UK, with growers using an average of 10 or up to 20 treatments to ensure yield (vs 1-3 fungicide treatments used on other major crops). Such extensive use of synthetic chemicals is resulting in resistance build-up and widespread environmental damage.With all of today's solutions either at-risk of resistance build-up or regulator removal, new solutions are needed now to prevent the spread of resistant varieties, maintain future crop security and meet demands for improving agricultural efficiencies.Using a combination of cutting-edge synthetic biology, directed evolution, machine learning and bioinformatics approaches, we aim to analyse soil microbiomes from 10 UK potato farms and identify 5 novel bacterially-derived fungicides against _P. infestans._ Discovery of new fungicides against this major global pathogen will provide a compelling case for further investment from key global agricultural players.Overall, our aim is to provide growers with more effective, more sustainable options for crop protection against late blight and to safeguard England's potato industry into the future. This ambition aligns with UK Plant Science Research Strategy to develop better, greener soil management practices and will support farmers in achieving the UK's ambitions to boost productivity and reduce the environmental impact of farming for sustainable potato production.