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Plant microbiome-based approaches aim to enhance plant immunity and resilience by leveraging beneficial microbes and managing the microbial community through both direct applications and indirect agricultural practices. Advances in sequencing technologies now enable targeted, sustainable disease management strategies that complement traditional crop protection within integrated pest management (IPM) frameworks.
Biostimulants have the potential to enhance both plant growth and defence mechanisms. Elicitors, a specific category of biostimulants, can activate plant defence responses by simulating the presence of biotic stressors. The use of natural products such as biostimulants and elicitors can reduce reliance on chemical pesticides, promote crop resilience and health, and contribute to more sustainable agricultural practices.
The invasive spotted wing drosophila (SWD) is an emerging pest of fruit crops in Scotland and efforts to develop IPM strategies that control numbers and limit damage are focussing on understanding the population genetics, habitat and landscape features and varietal susceptibility.
IPM research has brought together and tested late blight managment components including host resistance, disease forcasting, spore detection, inoculum sources and fungicide programmes.
IPM research has brought together and tested late blight management components including host resistance, disease forecasting, spore detection, inoculum sources and fungicide programmes.
The use of resistant cultivars is a key component of integrated management of potato cyst nematodes. Potato cyst nematodes are major pests of potato in the UK causing significant economic losses. Their occurrence in Scotland is increasing, particularly the pale potato cyst nematode (wPCN) Globodera pallida, and with further spread there is an increased risk of loss of seed land.
Culturing collected insect material allows the preservation of live reference collections and provides insect material for research.
Soil-borne pathogens of potato cause a number of serious blemish diseases. By employing appropriate soil sampling strategies in conjunction with a method for soil DNA extraction and real-time PCR assays to detect and quantify target pathogens, we can validate the relationship between soil-borne inoculum and disease risk. The relationship between pathogen detection and disease risk for black dot (Lees et al. 2010 and Brierley et al. 2015) and powdery scab (Brierley et al. 2012) have been determined. Furthermore, the impact of soil-borne inoculum on disease has been investigated in conjunction with other control factors such as host resistance and crop management, for example, crop duration and chemical control (Brierley et al. 2018).
Mixtures of several current recommended varieties of barley, particularly winter types, can be used to partially control many pathogens, particularly splash-dispersed pathogens such as R. commune (causing rhynchosporium or scald), as a control measure in their own right.
Pest and disease damage in soft fruit plantations can lead to significant yield loss, costing the industry millions of pounds annually. Current soft fruit breeding programmes have not fully exploited plant traits that confer resistance to, or tolerance of, the most damaging pests and diseases. Recent research to characterise genotypic variation in root and shoot physical traits of raspberry has highlighted traits that could be exploited to limit yield losses caused by the most damaging pests and diseases.
