Control of Ramularia Leaf Spot in a Changing Climate

柱隔孢叶斑病是由真菌柱隔孢引起的，在英国和欧洲许多其他地区迅速蔓延，成为大麦的一种主要疾病。它于1998年在英国首次被认可，现在在苏格兰很重要，特别是在春大麦上，并正在蔓延到英格兰的冬大麦。其重要性的快速，最近的增加意味着它是在疾病和病原体的科学认识方面知之甚少，作物病害管理的方法目前仅限于杀菌剂的应用和大麦品种的抗性柱隔孢的育种处于起步阶段。因此，我们既迫切需要了解这种疾病，又有机会进行研究，以对抗这种疾病。这个LINK项目将采取综合方法，开发控制柱隔孢的方法，尽管环境和农业系统发生了迅速变化，但这种方法仍将保持活力。这将有助于支持英国第二大作物大麦的生产，尽管气候越来越多变，但在经济和环境上都是可持续的。为了在短期内（最多5年）控制柱隔孢，我们将开发一个预测系统，以提高杀真菌剂应用的精确性，从而最大限度地减少用于大麦作物的有效成分的数量，以控制柱隔孢。在中期（长达10年），我们的研究将旨在通过减少大麦种子库存的污染来打破疾病的传播链，部分通过改进识别污染的方法，部分通过改进种子处理。从长远来看，我们的研究将支持大麦育种者选择适合英国市场的大麦品种，并且不容易受到柱隔孢的影响。我们将通过抗性遗传学的研究，通过鉴定具有不同的柱隔孢抗性基因的品种，从而可以杂交产生比其父母更好的抗性的大麦品系，以及通过改进选择对柱隔孢具有抗性的大麦品种的方法来实现这一目标。这项研究将以疾病生物学知识的进步为基础，揭示物理压力，真菌产生的毒素和大麦品种对真菌的抗性之间复杂的相互作用。该项目取得的进展将使大麦种植者能够使用有效的杀菌剂适时应用来控制柱隔孢，种子贸易有机会通过最大限度地减少大麦种子的真菌污染来减少疾病的传播，植物育种者有机会生产出对柱隔孢具有抗性的大麦品种。

Ramularia leaf spot, caused by the fungus Ramularia collo-cygni, has spread rapidly to become a major disease of barley in Britain and many other parts of Europe. It was first recognised in the UK in 1998 and is now important in Scotland, especially on spring barley, and is spreading into winter barley in England. The rapid, recent increase in its importance means it is poorly understood in terms of scientific understanding of the disease and the pathogen, methods of crop disease management are currently limited to fungicide applications and breeding of barley varieties for resistance to Ramularia is in its infancy. There is thus both a pressing need to understand the disease and an exciting opportunity for research to combat it. This LINK project will take an integrated approach to developing methods to controlling Ramularia which will remain robust despite rapid changes in the environment and farming systems. This will help to support production of barley, the UK's second most important crop, in a way which is economically and environmentally sustainable despite an increasingly variable climate. For control of Ramularia in the short term (up to 5 years), we will develop a forecasting system to increase the precision of fungicide applications and thus to minimise the volume of active ingredients applied to barley crops to control Ramularia. For the medium term (up to 10 years), our research will aim to break the chain of transmission of the disease by reducing contamination of barley seed stocks, partly through improved methods of identifying contamination and partly by improvements in seed treatments. For the longer term, our research will support the efforts of barley breeders to select barley varieties which are suitable for UK markets and are not susceptible to Ramularia. We will do this partly by research on the genetics of resistance, by identifying varieties which have different genes for Ramularia resistance and can thus be crossed to produce barley lines with better resistance than their parents, and partly by improving methods of selecting barley varieties with resistance to Ramularia. This research will be underpinned by advances in knowledge of the biology of the disease, unravelling the complex interactions between physical stress, toxins produced by the fungus and the resistance of barley varieties to the fungus. Advances made by this project will give barley growers the ability to control Ramularia using well-timed applications of effective fungicides, the seed trade the opportunity to reduce the spread of the disease by minimising fungal contamination of barley seed and plant breeders the opportunity of producing barley varieties with resistance to Ramularia.