BSPP News The Newsletter of the British Society for Plant Pathology

No 73 Spring 2014

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Contents Front cover: A gfp transformed isolate of Ramularia collo-cygni infecting Avena

fatua (photo courtesy of April Armstrong - see page 28 for details). Page 4. Notices about Future Meetings 5. Obituary - Dr Betty Gray 6. Newly Elected Board Members 9. BSPP outreach: year two 11. BSPP Secretary Vacancy Meetings Reports 12. 14th International Conference on Pseudomonas by Christopher Waite 13. EMBO Green viruses, from gene to landscape by Charlotte Nellist 15. The 10th International Congress of Plant Pathology, by Mike Shaw, Bruce

Fitt, Dawn Arnold, Julie Lock, Norm Schaad, Mahendra P Srivastava, Ma-ria Borlinghaus, Ronaldo Alberto, Ruth Le Fevre, Magdalena Siebold, Princy Varghese, Azawei Alamene, Tijana Stancic, Elias Sowley, Dan Maxwell, Rose Murray, Rob Jackson, Fay Newberry, Robert Saville, Xiaolei Jin, Avice Hall, and Olga Badalyan, edited by Matt Dickinson.

Undergraduate Bursary Reports 27. Temperature response in the fungal plant pathogen Leptospheria macu-

lans by Georgina Mason 28. An ecological assessment of Ramularia collo-cygni infection in different

temperate plant species by April Armstrong 29. The effect of trichomes on plant-aphid interactions by Josie Maidment 31. Genetic and mycotoxin profiling of an epidemic using Fusarium gramine-

arum field populations by Alison Madgwick 32. Spatial and temporal resolution of pest and disease incidence by Mara

Carraro 33. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal colonisation of different barley varieties by

Hicret Aslı Yalçin 35. Pathogenicity factors in Blumeria graminis infections by Max Wilkinson 36. The effect of PAMPs on plant growth and stress by Alicia P-Neophytou 38. Studying the role of pathogenicity effectors in altering host immune re-

sponses by Tom Adams 39. Infection efficiency of aggressive Phytophthora infestans genotypes at

different temperatures by Stephen Kemp

Masters Bursary Report 41. The role of serine hydroxy methyl transferase 6 (SHM6) in plant defence

against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 by Milena Molasy 43. A Mostly Pathological Crossword by Cryptogam 44. BSPP Board Members

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Editorial Welcome to the Spring edition of the BSPP newsletter. Once again we have a bumper issue, hearing from the remainder of the 2013 summer bursary students. The scheme is currently open for applicants for the summer of 2014, so if you feel inspired, please see the website for more details. I hope you enjoy this issue and if you want to contribute in any way please feel free to contact me at bsppnews@bspp.org.uk, I look forward to hearing from you.

Jennifer Hodgetts BSPP Newsletter Editor

Prize winners from the 2013 BSPP Presidential Conference

The prize winners, pictured with 2013 BSPP President Mike Shaw, were; Rebekah Robinson (Rothamsted Research) (left), winner of the P H Gregory prize for presentation of an oral paper for her talk "Bacterial endophytes in wheat: isolation, community structure aid in plants localisation" Xiaolei Jin (University of Hertfordshire) (right), winner of the J Colhoun prize for a poster was for her poster "Development and maturation of the chasmothecia of Podosphaera aphanis on strawberry".

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A reminder of some future meetings and conferences

The 3rd International Erwinia workshop Shanghai, China, 07 to 08 June 2014 The 13th International Conference on Plant Pathogenic Bacteria Shanghai, China, 08 to 13 June 2014 VIII International Symposium on Chemical and Non-Chemical Soil and Substrate Disinfestation Torino, Italy, 13 to 18 July 2014 XVI Congress of the International Society of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions Rhodes, Greece, 06 to 10 July 2014 19th Triennial Conference of the European Association for Potato Research Brussels, Belgium, 06 to 11 July 2014 10th International Mycological Congress (IMC10) Bangkok, Thailand, 03 to 08 August 2014 APS meeting: APS Annual Meeting Minneapolis, USA, 09 to 13 August 2014 APPS meeting: 11th Australasian Plant Virology Workshop Brisbane, Australia, 13 to 15 August 2014 Horticulture - sustaining lives, livelihoods and landscapes Brisbane, Australia, 17 to 24 August 2014 BSPP 2014 Presidential Meeting St Andrews University, 01 to 02 September 2014 11th Conference of the European Foundation for Plant Pathology Cracow, Poland, 08 to 13 September 2014 VIII International Symposium on Kiwifruit Chengdu, China, 18 to 22 September 2014 11th Arab Congress of Plant Protection Amman, Jordan, 09 to 13 November 2014 9th International Workshop on Grapevine Trunk Diseases Adelaide, Australia, 18 to 20 November 2014

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Dr Betty Gray

Betty Gray, plant pathologist at the North of Scotland College of Agriculture (NOSCA) for 34 years died in March 2013 at the age of 93. She was passionate about her discipline and has made a generous bequest to BSPP. Betty Gray was one of a cohort of advisers who were employed after the war to improve the productivity of farming in Britain. These advisers were powerhouses, whose knowledge and understanding of agriculture far outstripped the farmers and growers of the era and whose impact was large as a consequence. Betty was one of only five women in Scotland to be a member of this exclusive group. Betty’s role, as a plant pathologist, was to support locally based general advisers across the region in helping farmers and growers control plant diseases that robbed crops of so much yield and quality. Consequently, she had to be an expert on all the major and minor crops of the north of Scotland. Her job meant she had to carry out relevant research to find solutions to problems as well as give advice. But since NOSCA was also a centre for agricultural education, Betty also taught plant pathology to farmer sons and daughters at Diploma and degree level. Dr Gray joined NOSCA in 1943 as a mycologist after graduating from Edinburgh University and studying fungi at the Royal Botanic Garden under Malcolm Wilson. Many who wrote to her were always surprised that the address of NOSCA at that time was 41½ Union Street Aberdeen! Her knowledge of diseases across horticultural and agricultural crops was prodigious. A vast number of farmers of the time were helped by her attention to detail, her knowledge and her commitment to solve a problem. So vast was her knowledge that, years after retirement, she wrote down an annotated list of all horticultural diseases she had come across throughout her career. Incredibly, she could recall the names of farmers and growers who experienced the problems, locations, even down to the field where an outbreak occurred as well as a mass of background detail. Fresh faced plant pathologists at NOSCA and subsequently at SAC, discovering what they thought was something unusual, when talking to Betty soon learned that the disease had in fact been seen before. But she was always willing to impart her knowledge to these aspiring pathologists. Betty epitomised the ethos at NOSCA of service to the farming community. It was understood that finding a solution was paramount, that getting the answer to the farmer/grower was a priority and that this was done with impartiality and confidentiality. These standards of service continue to be aspired to by her successors. Many growers at the time fondly remembered ‘Dr Betty’s’ characteristic hesitant but considered way of discussing a problem and her gentle way of getting

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someone to change their approach in order to improve. In the potato world she was particularly well known and her knowledge much sought after. Perhaps one of her major achievements was to get to grips with gangrene of potatoes (Phoma

foveata) that threatened the seed industry in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Betty’s esteem was not just confined to Scotland. Many who journeyed north or travelled from overseas to visit her spoke warmly of how she could turn a visit into something special. Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of the passing of someone like Betty Gray, therefore, is the loss of the store of plant pathology wisdom that has been accumulated over many years. Those who tried to follow in her footsteps quickly realised just how substantial her knowledge was and how difficult it is to replicate. Stuart Wale, President BSPP 2004

Newly Elected Board Members Dr Julie Flood, BSPP President 2016 Julie Flood is a Senior Global Director for Commodities at CABI. Julie has 30 years’ experience working with perennial crops. In particular, her focus has been on diseases of cocoa, oil palm, coffee, coconut and cassava. She spent 16 years working in the UK academic system. Firstly working at the University of Bristol, conducting research and lecturing in plant pathology and mycology and later at the University of Bath, leading research on oil palm and cocoa. She then moved to Papua New Guinea as Head of Plant Pathology at CCRI working on cocoa and coconut. Returning to the UK, she joined CABI in 1996 as Senior Research Group Leader and was later promoted to Head of Department. In early 2006, she became Regional Director for CABI’s European Centre. In late 2007, she moved to her current role which involves responsibility for the strategy of CABI’s commodities work and for overseeing CABI’s commodity related projects in crops such as oil palm, coffee, cocoa, high value horticulture and cotton. Much of this work involves improving the management of pests and diseases, increasing productivity through the adoption of good agricultural practices, enhancing the quality of produce and improving market access for producers. Her role also includes institutional development and capacity building,

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particularly in Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Africa. She has experience of working in, and collaboration with, national agricultural research institutes, international research institutes and private industry. She also has extensive experience of project development and in managing multinational, multi stakeholder projects. Dr Paul Beales, BSPP board member 2014-2016 A slightly faded, 70s coloured Kodachrome photograph captures me at 1 ½ years old looking at the underside of a rhododendron leaf…obviously for signs of powdery mildew, or Phytophthora ramorum which were to become a big part of my life years later! I had the privilege of studying under Dr Peter Spencer-Philips at UWE and Dr Avice Hall MBE at UH for my bachelors and doctorate respectively, their enthusiasm and encouragement stimulated my love of plants…well more specifically the diseases that affect them. Following this I began working at what was then Central Science laboratory in 1997 in lovely York and am still here many years later. My role is extremely broad, but principally involves diagnostic of plant fungal diseases of quarantine and non-quarantine nature from plants from all over the world; development and validation of novel diagnostic lab and field methods; managing an emergency response team who carry out surveys for new plant health threats to the UK e.g. Phytophthora ramorum and Chalara fraxinea (ash dieback); some epidemiological and pathological research and training students and colleagues in plant pathology. I am also involved in a number of citizen science projects which brings the world of plant pathology into the eyes of the general public. Dr Kerry Maguire, BSPP board member 2014-2016 I got hooked on plant pathology after the enthusiastic lectures given by John Mansfield during my plant science degree. I followed this with a PhD in molecular plant pathology, where I was introduced to the fascinating world of cereal killers at Rothamsted Research. After a brief foray into the world of nematodes and arabidopsis I moved to NIAB working on over 20 cereal diseases. This was part of variety trials, research and contract trials. I am now the pathologist at the Processors and Growers Research Organisation. My role is very varied from talking to growers, dealing with diseased plants coming into the crop clinic as well as applied research. I am fascinated by pathogens and try to enthuse others at open days, exhibits and visit by schools. William Kay, BSPP Webmanager I am a PhD student currently working work under the supervision of Professor Sarah Gurr at the University of Exeter. My project surrounds chitin/PAMP triggered immunity (PTI) in wheat and looks to improve yields under biotic or

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abiotic stress. I was elected to the BSPP as web manager in January 2014. I have good experience in web development and hope to use these skills to help BSPP maintain a modern and highly functional web presence. I was also the recipient of a BSPP summer bursary in 2011 which I spent with Dr Richard Cooper at the University of Bath. When not in the greenhouse or the lab, I like to spend my time cooking, walking, watching films, playing sports such as cricket, squash and 5-a-side football (badly) and also going camper-vanning around England and Europe.

Dr Wing Sham Lee, BSPP Membership Secretary Wing Sham (Sam) Lee is a core-funded post-doctoral researcher at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire. Her first degree was in Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, where she was originally drawn to Plant Sciences by the enthusiasm of the lecturers who were also the most fun. She soon became fascinated by the elegance and complexities of plant-pathogen interactions and of plant defence signalling in particular. She carried out her PhD studies at Cambridge University, investigating the role of salicylic acid-induced defences in anti-viral defence. She then joined Rothamsted Research in her current position, where she is using virus-induced gene silencing (VIGS) to investigate the defence mechanisms involved in the host response to infection by Zymoseptoria tritici and Fusarium

graminearum, two economically important fungal pathogens of wheat. Originally from Manchester, Sam has tried hard to find good mushy peas, chips and gravy in Hertfordshire to little avail. She enjoys walking, badminton and reading, although she finds it hard on walking holidays to pass arable fields without pausing to look for evidence of fungal or viral diseases on the crop plants.

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BSPP outreach: year two The BSPP outreach team are busy developing resources and getting ready for this year’s events, which are coming up fast!

Events 13th - 16th March: Plant Doctor stand at the Big Bang Fair We have lots of events planned for this year. The first will be our biggest and bus-iest event yet: the Big Bang Fair. This is a free event, taking place in the Birmingham NEC and is expected to receive around 65,000 visitors between the ages of 7 to 19.

To run this stand, BSPP Outreach is teaming up with the public engagement team at the John Innes Centre. Our stand will include activities for all ages: from the 'Make a Plant Attacker Model' and 'Plant Doctor' activities for younger students, to a public dialogue activity discussing plant disease control options and the Facebook Fraxinus game for older students. This event provides us with an exciting opportunity to reach and engage with a large number of young people. We're hoping our activities will prove just how fascinating careers involving plants (especially plant pathology) can be!

April - July: BSPP Outreach Road Show Over these months, we’ll be taking the Plant Doctor stand to various events around the UK, including Edinburgh International Science Festival (12th - 13th April), Science in Norwich Day (1st June), Cardiff Science Festival (19th - 20th Ju-ly). We will need lots of BSPP members to take part in these events so please contact outreach@bspp.org.uk if you’re interested in helping.

Resources The first BSPP educational resources are now available: www.bspp.org.uk/society/education.php. These resources are there for you to use in your local school. Please contact me if you’re interested in doing this and would like any assistance. We’d also like to hear your feedback. Over the coming months, the team will be producing more resources including a secondary school debate activity to discuss the different ways of controlling plant diseases. We are also putting together some job profiles to help show the range of careers available in plant pathology.

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Get involved If you’d like to get involved with events or resources please email me (outreach@bspp.org.uk) and follow @BS_PP on Twitter. Outreach Mentors I would like to say a big thank you to previous outreach mentors Dr Robert Jackson and Professor Murray Grant for all their help and support in 2013. The new outreach mentor Dr Paul Beales is now on board. Paul has been involved in many outreach projects and is already proving to be an excellent mentor. In addition, I am very grateful to Dr Diane Hird who continues to help with many aspects of the project. Internship As of January, we have been joined by Odette Wills, a BBSRC PhD student from the University of Exeter. Odette is working to develop resources and activities for the Big Bang Fair. You can read more about how she gets on the BSPP outreach page: www.bspp.org.uk/outreach/index.php. Katie Tomlinson BSPP Outreach Officer

BSPP Conference Fund BSPP members can apply for funds to support the organisation of plant

pathology related conferences, meetings and workshops. For example, funds could be used to reduce conference fees for students, to finance visiting speakers, to prepare documentation, to subsidise excursions etc. The amount awarded is at the discretion of the Board and will depend on the benefit to plant pathology, but will not exceed £4000. Application for funding should be made to the BSPP President Elect at least 4 months ahead of the intended date of the conference. Please see the website for more details.

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BSPP Secretary Vacancy A new BSPP secretary is required by the BSPP from January 2015. This is a voluntary, unpaid, five year appointment and duties include: • Attend and organise the four Board meetings per year: - Discuss and agree dates with President and Board members - Book venues - Prepare the Agenda for each meeting - Call for papers from Board members, and distribute them - Take Minutes during the Board meeting and write them up • Organise the Annual Business Meeting of the Society together with the

Treasurer: - Prepare the Agenda - Take Minutes and write them up • Have responsibility for Companies House paperwork: - Signing on and off of Directors - Completing the Annual Return • Have responsibility for Charities Commission paperwork, completing the

Annual Database update and Annual Return • On liaison with the President, ensure the Board members are meeting their

responsibilities • Act as a contact for the Institute of Biology: - Attend Affiliated Societies meetings/forums - Respond to Government Initiatives via the IoB

Some comments from our current secretary Roger Williams; Serving as the BSPP Company Secretary is a great opportunity to network with other members of the BSPP Board and more widely beyond the Society. It also provides a good introduction to the governance and administration of a charitable organisation. This is useful experience for anyone interested in running an organi-sation. The responsibilities of Company Secretary are varied and include respond-ing to a modest but steady trickle of general enquiries, often from non-members. As such, the Secretary has an important role as a public face of the Society. Supporting the BSPP President, who changes each year, is an enjoyable aspect of the role and offers the chance to get to know some of our leading plant pathologists a little better. Attending to the core responsibilities of the Secretary takes around 1 day per month plus 4 Board meetings each year. However, there is considerable potential to contribute more time to the role if other commitments allow. This important Board position would suit a highly organised individual with an interest in contributing to the leadership of the BSPP. Applicants please contact the current secretary at secretary@bspp.org.uk

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The Gram-negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa fascinates researchers, not only because it remains a dangerous pathogen to sufferers of cystic fibrosis, but also in light of its metabolic versatility and complex virulence mechanisms – this was reflected by the large and international Pseudomonas community that gathered in Lausanne, Switzerland for the 14th international meeting dedicated entirely to the genus. My PhD research focuses on the mechanisms by which transcription of the Type-III secretion system (T3SS) master switch, HrpL, is regulated in the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae. My motivation for attending a conference more focused on P.

aeruginosa, for which I’m very grateful to the BSPP Travel Fund for making possible, was to take advantage of a related but better characterised bacterial model especially in the developing areas of cyclic-di-GMP signalling, lifestyle switching, biofilm formation and secretion mechanisms. It only took until the second keyonote lecture for P. syringae to feature! David Guttman of the University of Toronto presented an ingenious yet conceptually simple workflow for identifying novel PAMPs in the DC3000 pathovar and subsequently their corresponding receptors (PRRs) in Arabidopsis

thaliana. The ‘PAMP paradox’, that PAMPs are essential, conserved proteins

(subject to general negative selection against modification) that are able to evolve to evade recognition by the host plant (further subject to positive selection at specific sites), suggests that candidate PAMPs are most likely to be found within the subset of highly conserved genes that also exhibit signatures of positive selection. By comparing the genomes of over 50 bacterial phytopathogens, Guttman identified approximately 3800 conserved genes which are in turn subject to the Ka/Ks test for positive selection. During a high-throughput assay to identify which candidate PAMPs can elicit the innate immune response and suppress growth of DC3000 applied subsequently, A. thaliana leaf discs are challenged with specific peptides exhibiting signatures of positive selection. This method, which confirmed a number of novel PAMPs, was utilised further to screen a library of A. thaliana

mutants for corresponding PRRs, which are revealed when candidate peptides can no longer elicit the innate immune response. One peculiar finding is that a receptor associated with the CLV3 pathway for apical meristem development also moonlights as a PRR. Also of interest, Jacob Malone from the John Innes Centre studied the role of cyclic-di-GMP signalling in rhizosphere colonisation by the biocontrol agent Pseudomonas fluorescens and presented his focus on the RccA GGDEF/EAL domain protein and its

MEETINGS REPORTS

14th International Conference on Pseudomonas, Lausanne, Switzerland

7th - 11th September 2013

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transcriptional response regulator RccR. Christoph Keel from the University of Lausanne has discovered that certain strains of root-colonising P. fluorescens and P. protogens also exhibit strong pathogenicity against herbivorous insects. He showed that the potent Fit toxin is specifically activated within the insect gut, most effectively in aphids and Lepidoptera, due to activation of a signal receptor of the DctB family. These both plant-beneficial and insect-pathogenic strains therefore offer great agricultural promise. A particular highlight that would interest all microbiologists alike was Lynne Turnbull’s super-resolution video footage of explosive biofilm cell lysis in real-time, which results in the release of extracellular DNA and formation of membrane vesicles. In close second was Jan Roelf van der Meer’s account of the mechanism by which mobile ‘integrated and conjugative elements’ (ICE) are activated for conjugation. As part of a bistable population response, these are excised

from the chromosome in only a few ‘donor’ cells during stationary phase. We were also encouraged by a number of speakers, in particular Marvin Whitely from Texas, to abandon the general preconception that laboratory monocultures are representative of natural environments and instead embrace the fact that the vast majority are home to polymicrobial communities engaged in complex synsergistic or competing relationships. Finally a session focused on clinical care offered an opportunity for truancy into the rolling, vineyard terraces of Lavaux, just along the shore of Lake Geneva. However, even this excursion offered a lesson in plant pathology – the rose trees that frame the vines are not there only for their aesthetic beauty, but primarily as a hyper-sensitive host that forewarns of the approach of the powdery mildew fungus, a plague of the grapevine! Christopher Waite Imperial College London

EMBO Green viruses, from gene to landscape, Hyéres-les-Palmiers, France

7th - 11th September 2013

The 2013 EMBO Green viruses conference was held on the secluded peninsula of the Mediterranean coast, on the French Riviera. It was the ideal location to hear about the most recent advances in plant virology as well as providing a beautiful setting to network with academics. The conference was limited to approximately 120 delegates, with very few places for PhD students. Academics from all over the world attended the conference, including many leaders in their field.

The conference programme was split into six sessions, over four days and consisted of talks from a wide variety of areas, from discussing the diverse mechanisms of resistance to plant viruses right through to epidemiology, population genetics and evolution. The conference was fast moving and interesting. The quality of platform presentat ions and posters was impressive. There was ample time for the poster presentations and I had a lot of interest in my poster ‘How does

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broad-spectrum resistance to Turnip

mosaic virus work in Brassica rapa?’ My poster described the novel mechanism of resistance we have identified in Brassica rapa which provides broad-spectrum resistance to Turnip mosaic

virus. It was really useful to talk to other academics about the implications of my work. It was also useful and educational to be exposed to the posters and chat informally with people about their work. The most interesting aspect of the conference for me was the session on resistance mechanisms other than silencing as this directly relates to my PhD project. Having the opportunity to talk to specialists in the field about my project was invaluable. In particular,

meeting Dr. Christophe Robaglia and Dr. Miguel Aranda, who are both leading experts in the field of recessive resistance to plant viruses, was enlightening and inspiring. Hearing both them speak was very interesting, especially in terms of the amount of work that had been done in my particular area of interest, plant eIF4E/eIF(iso)4E-virus interactions. Hearing about similar work in different crops has provided me with insight into other methods and possible future directions for my own work. As well as focusing on the scientific developments, there was time set aside for an excursion to the island of Porquerolles on the second day. This gave us the perfect chance to stretch our legs, explore some of the history of the region and interact with other delegates. The conference was a great experience and extremely useful for keeping up to date with new advances in the field. It was a great opportunity to talk informally to the delegates at the conference and to discuss interesting concepts. I would like to thank the BSPP for their financial support and enabling me to attend this informative conference and present my poster. I plan to use the knowledge and contacts obtained, in my BBSRC and Syngenta funded PhD project on ‘The Deployment and Mechanism of Broad-spectrum Resistance to Turnip mosaic virus in Brassica rapa’ and also benefit my future career. Charlotte Nellist University of Warwick

Charlotte with her poster

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The 10th International Congress of Plant Pathology was organised by the Chinese Society for Plant Pathology on behalf of the International Society of Plant Pa-thology and took place at Beijing’s In-ternational Convention Centre. The Centre was located next to the Bird’s Nest Stadium and other venues from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This was a large meeting, with over 1500 dele-gates, of whom some 800 were from countries outside China. In the context of “Bio-security, food safety and plant pathology: the role of plant pathology in a globalised econo-my” the conference revolved around the most challenging question agriculture is facing today: how do we feed a billion hungry people? With the expected glob-al population of over 9 billion people by 2050, the current status of 220 billion dollars global annual yield losses due to plant diseases, the annual wastage of around 35-40% of our food, and the fact that half of the global grain yield is fed to livestock to satisfy the increasing world demand for meat, discussions centred around how to increase food production by 70% by 2050. The BSPP was well represented at the Congress, both as one of the sponsors, and through its financial help towards the travel costs of a number of dele-gates. Below is a compilation of some of the highlights of the meeting (and asso-ciated workshops) as seen through the eyes of a number of these BSPP-funded participants.

Mike Shaw BSPP President and University of Reading, UK For me, the conference and the piggy-backed International Epidemiology Workshop was a chance to survey the field of Plant Pathology and get a feel for what interests people around the world. Of course, the view is biased, but still at a more specialised conference one gets no feel for how little (or how much) the wider community of re-searchers knows what you do. I went to some talks that excited me, some that confirmed what I vaguely knew, and alas, I went to many whose presenters simply hadn't thought about how or what could be communicated in 20 minutes to people with normal eyesight and reading speed. I was fascinated by a visit to the poly-tunnel systems of the market gardens outside Beijing, using every joule of sunshine to extend the

The 10th International Congress of Plant Pathology, Beijing, China 25th - 30th August 2013

South-facing poly tunnel with 3 m heat store in mud and straw behind. Two tomato crops a year are produced in

this system (with interesting soil pathogens!)

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season in a beautiful low-tech system, and amazed and admiring at the China-wide integrated management of wheat yellow rust. And most useful of all, I spoke to many people from many coun-tries about pathological topics and came away with examples that I'll use this autumn in my disease management course. Sadly, those lectures won't be to very many students: the urgency of finding ways to pass on expertise in pathology and keep the field a living one in the UK remains great. Bruce Fitt University of Hertfordshire, UK My colleagues and I attended the 11th International Epidemiology Workshop (22nd to 25th August) and the 10th Inter-national Congress of Plant Pathology (25th to 30th August). Each day of the workshop started with invited lectures that often focussed on aspects of mod-elling crop disease epidemics, though Mike Jeger discussed the usefulness of the ‘disease triangle’ in plant disease epidemiology and Zhanhong Ma de-scribed the implementation of national strategies for monitoring and control of epidemics of wheat yellow rust in China. Besides the poster sessions, there were also discussion sessions on multiple pathosystems, decision support sys-tems, statistical methods, network and gene theory and relationships between ecological and molecular methods in plant disease epidemiology. The UK was well represented at the workshop and the UK contingent offered to host the 12th International Epidemiology Work-shop in 2017 in either Cambridge (April) or Edinburgh (July). Moving on to the ICPP meeting, for me the highlight of the plenary sessions was the work on food security, climate change and plant diseases. It was fascinating to see the correlation between periods of climate change and dynasty change in China

over the last 2000 years. On the first evening there was a blackleg (phoma stem canker) workshop attended by more than 100 delegates. The at-tendees included representatives of the Chinese (AQSIQ) and Australian (DAFF) quarantine services and it was a privi-lege to visit AQSIQ later in the week to discuss strategies to decrease the risk that Leptosphaeria maculans will be-come established in China, where only the less damaging L. biglobosa is cur-rently present in oilseed rape crops. Dawn Arnold University of the West of England, UK The opening lecture at the ICPP Con-gress was presented by Qifa Zhang from the Huazhong Agricultural Univer-sity, China and focused on crop ge-nomics and biotechnology: feeding the billions. He discussed that the produc-tion of the three major food crops, maize, rice and wheat has been increas-ing but this needs to continue to feed the worlds increasing population. The focus of this talk was on rice and how the use of the rice genome sequence has allowed a better understanding of genes and regulatory elements that can be utilised for future crop improve-ments. The following plenary session was on the role of plant pathology in a globalised economy. This session in-cluded a number of presentations in-cluding an interesting one from Jan Leach, Colorado State University, USA. She started with her take home mes-sage which is the answer to the ques-tion ‘how will plant pathologists make a difference?’ her answer was ‘we feed the people!’ She discussed the need to secure food sources in the background of climate change which was a general theme of some of the opening talks who made some interesting observations such as Xiao-Bing Yang, Iowa State

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University, USA, discussing the prob-lems associated with extreme weather events effecting disease outbreaks and making management more difficult. He also stated that a ‘globalised economy leads to less diversified crop production systems which are likely to be vulnera-ble to epidemics’. These opening presentations set the scene for the rest of the conference and were certainly food for thought. Julie Lock Moulton College, UK The 5th International Phytophthora, Pythium and Related Genera Workshop was held over the course of two days and allowed me to reflect on research and methods (applied and genomics) currently used. The Congress itself pro-vided a good mixture of topics with a variety of informative talks about cur-rent research. My individual focus was given to: host-plant interactions, bio-logical control of plant diseases, fruit tree diseases, invasive and emerging diseases, plant diseases and control in protected cultivation, new careers and roles for plant pathologists, and soil borne diseases and their control. The workshop and congress lent themselves well to better versing me in the broader context of my own research into the treatment of Specific Replant Disease on Sorbus aucuparia, allowing me to

consider new avenues of investigation. Norm Schaad Editor for Plant Pathology, USA I presented an invited talk entitled ‘Technical challenges for specific, sensi-tive detection of seed-borne bacterial pathogens’ in the concurrent session on Global seed health concerns and solu-tions. Talks at the Congress of most interest to me included, ‘Improved de-tection and monitoring of seed-borne plant pathogens in China’ by Jianqiang Li, ‘Global standards in seed health test-ing’ by T. Aveling and ‘Seed-borne pests and phytosanitary issues’ by F. Petter. On Aug 23 I met with students of Prof. Li at the China Agriculture University (CAU) to discuss survival of Clavibacter

michiganensis subs. michiganensis, and on Aug 24 I presented a talk on detec-tion of bacteria to the Beijing Tongzhou International Seed Industry, Science and Technology Park. Mahendra P Srivastava CCS Haryana Agricultural Universi-ty, India

My first presentation was in the session on ‘Plant Pathology Extension’ on 28th August. In this session, P Yang deliber-ated on ‘Current status and prospective disease management in China’, followed by Mary K Hausbeck on ‘Role of exten-sion specialist in Michigan’. Iftikhar Ah-mad from Pakistan discussed ‘Farmer Field School and its role in management of plant diseases in Pakistan’ and Steve Koike appraised the audience about ‘County-based plant pathology program in California: A novel model for carrying out the extension Mission’. My talk as-serted that knowledge transfer to farm-ers is crucial to achieve sustainability. The goal is achieved through traditional tools of extension and information tech-nology powered by motivation and in-spiration. The emphasis was on the role

The congress opening ceremony

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of IPM to reduce pesticide misuse, role of seed treatment, host resistance, plant clinics and knowledge dissemina-tion with innovative bulletins invigorat-ing communication with farmers. In addition, I co-organized the Keynote Session on ‘Plant Pathology in Asia’. Terauchi Ryohei from Japan spoke on ‘Whole genome analysis of rice – Mag-naporthe interactions’ while X. Zhou from China delivered his keynote ad-dress on ‘Advances in understanding begomovirus satellites’. My talk dis-cussed how plant health clinics hold the key to food security, with a call upon the participating nations to create more well-organized multispecialty clinics with independent physical identity, bet-ter infrastructure and resources, and a redefined role to boost food security. Maria Borlinghaus SRUC, Edinburgh, UK Of particular interest to me were the sessions on fungicides and crop protec-tion. The innovation of fungicides is a naturally slow process, with only 1 in 139,000 compounds making it to the market nowadays. Globally, six compa-nies dominate the pesticide market worth $47 billion, but actually only 30% of ingredients are patented among which QoIs are currently the biggest sellers. There are 67 modes of action but more than 50% are at resistance risk. Biofungicides make up only a small percentage of the market, worth $3.2 billion, but it has become clear that chemical and non-chemical protection is needed for current and future legisla-tion. Different strategies to reduce the resistance risk and to gain similar or better efficacy were suggested, along with use of biological control agents and organic amendments as part of organic farming and also in conventional agri-culture, and also the use of soil sup-pressiveness to add value to the direct

pathogen control. It was emphasised at this conference that we need more inte-grated holistic approaches to disease management to ensure effective crop protection that meets the demands of our growing global population for long term food security. Ronaldo Alberto, Central Luzon State University, the Philippines In the afternoon of the first day, I at-tended the concurrent session on “Climate Change and Plant Diseases” where Sukumar Chakraborty spoke on the realistic experimental approaches to climate change. All the topics were in-teresting, such as the paper by Magda-lena Siebold whereby they were able to simulate and control the soil tempera-ture to determine the effects of soil warming on the life cycle of pathogens on oil seed rape. Later in the week I also attended the ‘Forensic Plant Pathol-ogy’ session because of my interest on how forensics can be applied in plant pathology, most especially on toxins produced by plant pathogens, and this was elucidated very well by Dr Gamliel of ARO Volcani Center, Israel and Dr Fletcher of OSU, USA. Late in the after-noon session, one presentation that

Maria and a number of other (mainly UK-based) delegates

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caught my attention was the short talk of William Roberts, Australia, whereby he was asking if “quarantine action should be based on DNA sequences rather than species”, which led to quite a lot of questions from the audience. On the last day of the conference, the pa-pers presented in the morning were on the ‘Molecular Host-Pathogen Interac-tions’ and short talks about resistance. Ruth Le Fevre University of Cambridge, UK This was my first international confer-ence and I completely underestimated just what kind of scale it would be on. I am particularly interested in the practi-cal applications of plant pathology re-search and so scoured the line-up for relevant topics and only struggled with my schedule because of how difficult it was to decide which talks to see. The sessions on ‘Beneficial Plant Pathogens for Weed Control’ and ‘Biological Control of Plant Diseases’ included great talks from Louise Morin, on using Phoma

macrostoma as a bioherbicide for broad-leaf weed control, and Monica Maurho-fer, on the use of plant-associated in-sect toxin producing pseudomonads for biological control of insect pests and fungal diseases, respectively. However my particular favourite was in the ses-sion on ‘Biotechnological Applications in Plant Disease Control’ given by Cyril Zipfel from the Sainsbury Lab in Nor-wich who talked about using biotechnol-ogy to engineer the arsenal of plant pathogen recognition receptors in crop plants to combat disease resistance. Magdalena Siebold University of Göttingen, Germany Having worked in the field of climate change during my PhD I was curious to find out what the ICPP had to offer in that area. The importance of climate change research was addressed by

many keynote and plenary talks during the meeting. The concurrent session ‘Climate change and plant diseases: what have we learnt in 20 years?’ cov-ered a broad range of methods from modeling to experimental in eight inter-esting talks. For example, Adam Sparks (IRRI, Philippines) presented a model-ing approach combining crop, disease and weather data to generate spatial estimates of disease severity and yield losses due to leaf blast and bacterial leaf blight of rice in Africa. Sukumar Chakraborty (CSIRO, Australia) stressed that findings from realistic empirical research approaches are the basis for accurate predictions of climate change effects on plant pathogens. Be-sides this session, however, there were only 7 posters on climate change and plant diseases. Overall, multi-factor climate change experiments involving plant pathogens under field conditions are still a rare thing to find. Princy Varghese University of Nottingham, UK Among the diverse informative ses-sions, I liked the session that covered aspects of post-harvest pathology like post-harvest diseases, current control measures, their advantages and limita-

Magdalena and other delegates at the pre-conference reception

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tions. The session ended with an open discussion on what can be done in the future to overcome the limitations of current control measures, where both the speakers & the audience got active-ly involved. Another session where I was much benefitted was molecular diagnostics of plant pathogens. My poster under the topic Plant food securi-ty: a network of excellence on bio secu-rity gave me encouraging and construc-tive comments from the delegates. Azawei Alamene University of Nottingham, UK The conference was very exciting. I learnt a lot from eminent scholars of plant pathology from different countries of the world, and experienced the latest developments in many fields. This pro-vided me with invaluable experience for exchange of ideas, information and re-search techniques related to my area of research. Tijana Stancic Harper Adams University, UK I very much enjoyed ICPP2013 which was my first Plant Patholgy Congress, and the whole Congress was very well organized and packed with fascinating talks. Each day comprised a few parallel sessions and it was often hard to

choose which one to attend. The most relevant for my work was the session on mycotoxins. This included a very interesting talk by Naresh Magan who presented results from microarray work on toxin production under different climate change environmental factors. Paola Battilani presented work on the Fusarium verticillioides-maize interaction. It was very interesting to hear about the role of fatty acids on the hidden fumonisins. We were reminded of the importance of masked and hidden mycotoxins. Modelling levels of mycotoxins is becoming an important issue in many research groups. Posters of the session were equally interesting as talks given. I was particularly interested to read about promising new approaches for inhibition of mycotoxin biosynthesis such as RNA silencing technology and a novel immunosensing method for mycotoxin detection based on microcantilever sensors. Morning and evening sessions of the Congress were above all motivating. I will not forget thought provoking presentation from Jan Leach and her recap on the role of plant pathologists and that is to feed the people. Elias Sowley University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana

The Great Wall of China

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I attended all the plenary sessions which were characterised by very inter-esting presentations like the one made by Prof. Maria Gullino, during which she highlighted the challenges likely to be faced by world agriculture because of climate change. These challenges in-cluded unfavourable temperatures, shortage of water and loss of arable land. She indicated that methyl bromide an ozone-depleting compound, has been phased out in Italy in compliance with the Montreal protocol. Dr Jan Leach related his presentation to the millennium development goals particu-larly goal one which is aimed at eradi-cating extreme poverty. It was interest-ing to learn that, although this goal has been met, 1.2 billion people are still hungry with poor people spending about 70% of their income on food. He pro-posed among other things the breeding of crops that promote health. He added that the ‘omics’ technology offers the opportunity for building genomes through synthetic biology which can be particularly useful for improving plant disease resistance. There were numer-ous concurrent scientific sessions, so I attended presentations which I thought were more relevant to my area of ex-pertise. They included Jacqueline Fletcher’s presentation on ‘Human path-ogens on plants: Role of plant pathologists in a multidisciplinary miti-gation strategy’ which highlighted the increasing trend in diseases associated with the consumption of fresh produce. She suggested that human pathogens on plants (HPOP) which are found in faeces, soil and silage among other sources are responsible for this trend. This worrying trend can be more serious in developing countries where many vegetable growers lack access to mu-nicipal water. It was interesting to know that plant pathogens can have a helper function, enabling HPOPs to colonise

plants. The presentation by Andy Lead-beater on ‘New developments in chemi-cal disease management’ was also in-teresting. He indicated that there are gaps in crop protection which are not being addressed by existing fungicides that can be addressed by innovations focusing on Succinase Dehydrogenase Inhibitors (SDHIs), using mixtures of chemicals to minimise resistance and developing new fungicides with lower application rates. According to him the production of botanicals (plant extracts) by major companies is on the rise. This holds a lot of promise for the develop-ing countries where a lot of plants with pesticidal properties abound. As a plant pathology teacher, I found the presen-tation on ‘Outcomes based learning and active learning techniques in plant pa-thology’ by Darin Eastburn very exciting and innovative. The emphasis on what is learnt and not what is taught has helped me to reflect on my methods of teaching. I liked the ‘Think-Pair-Share’ approach which allows students time to process information, validate or self correct. The use of Student Response Devices is also very interesting. I re-ceived very useful comments on my poster titled ‘Evaluation of some botani-cals for the control of seedborne fungi of maize (Zea mays L.)’. I also met old friends and made new ones. I left Bei-jing satisfied that I have acquired more knowledge through the rich presenta-tions and my interaction with colleagues and senior colleagues from across the globe. On the whole it appeared to me that the ‘-omics’ technology has be-come very popular and is potentially useful for the management of pests and diseases, but the high cost of equip-ment may be a limiting factor for re-searchers in developing countries, par-ticularly Africa. I had the feeling that more conscious efforts are being made by scientists and plant pathologists in

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particular, to minimise the impact of climate change through various innova-tions. Dan Maxwell University of Bristol, UK It was wonderful to be able to attend a conference in such a fascinating city, with so many famous sights to visit. Many of the presentations focussed on the importance of plant pathology in ensuring future food security, a theme that ran throughout the conference. There was an enormous range of topics covered in the various sessions, includ-ing a large number of virology talks that were of particular relevance to my PhD research on insect transmission of vi-ruses. I really enjoyed helping out on the BSPP stand and promoting the Soci-ety by handing out lots of small green fluffy toys! The poster session was a great opportunity to present my work to a large number of people and I received very helpful suggestions and feedback on my project. Rose Murray University of Bristol, UK Attending the 10th International Con-gress of Plant Pathology was a real highlight of the academic year. One of the main themes of the conference fo-cussed on the growing need for food security by the year 2050, which led to some remarkable talks in the morning plenary and keynote sessions. I was most interested to hear about how new crops were being developed to tackle today’s agricultural problems. In partic-ular, research presented by Martin Dick-man explained how using the cell’s pro-grammed cell death mechanism could be manipulated to engineer resistance to pathogens and stress in banana and sugarcane. The poster session was held on Wednesday evening where I was able to talk through my work with a

number of interested people, which enabled me to make some valuable contacts for the future. On Thursday evening the conference dinner was held where delegates were provided with traditional Chinese food and entertain-ment. Highlights were the face changers and contortionists. Rob Jackson University of Reading, UK There were a number of notable talks at the meeting - one was Cyril Zipfel’s, which was so popular it was impossible to get into the room and people were standing in the hallway! Matt Templeton gave a very nice overview on how the kiwi industry in New Zealand and around the world is under threat from a highly virulent form of Pseudomonas

syringae pv. actinidae. This elegant work used genomic analysis to show the evolution of different strains of the pathovar – this work has just been pub-lished in PLoS Pathogens. The plant pathogenic bacteria session gave a more focussed overview on bacterial diseases. Just when you thought you couldn’t delete any more effector genes from DC3000, Alan Collmer’s lab delet-ed six more “potential” effectors to ena-ble them to find HopAD1. This effector causes cell death in Nicotiana bentham-

iana and is revealed only after deletion of 28 other effector genes including avrPtoB. Caitlyn Allen discussed data suggesting that nitrogen cycling in bac-teria are used to generate energy dur-ing Ralstonia colonisation of xylem ves-sels and this has knock on effects on plant resistance. Teresa Coutinho pre-sented data showing how Xanthomonas

are host jumping between sugarcane crops and Eucalyptus, highlighting the importance of non-agricultural hosts in shaping pathogen evolution.

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Fay Newberry University of Reading, UK I’d been told that these events would be really different because of the differ-ence in delegate numbers but I hadn’t realised how different they would be. The 11th International Epidemiology Workshop covered a wide range of top-ics from mathematical modelling to agronomical practices and were ex-tremely interesting. Each talk was fol-lowed by ample time for questions and discussions. The talking was mainly done by the more experienced re-searchers in the group but there was constant encouragement – bordering on badgering! – to try and get the PhD students and younger researchers inter-acting. As a new researcher it was a good experience for me to listen to the flow of discussion, to hear what the main themes in epidemiological re-search are at the moment and to hear professions interacting with each other. This doesn’t happen in front of me very often in my own university. Only one discussion session really got the young-er members interacting and, unfortu-nately, that happened on the last day. The session leader introduced the topic and then asked for discussion in groups of four to six with a single member feeding back after a fixed time. The noise level in the room raised dramati-cally – a sure sign that discussion was in progress. In fact, it was difficult to call everyone back ‘to order’! Maybe that style of discussion should have been introduced earlier in the two and a half day meeting. I received fantastic feedback on my poster from a large number of experienced researchers and other PhD students. There was some praise to keep my confidence levels up but mainly just honest discussion. The ideas have kept me busy since my re-turn and re-energised my enthusiasm for my project. ICPP 2013 was very

different. This was a huge congress that took place in a purpose built conference centre. Even so, the professionals run-ning the centre could have done a bet-ter job. The catering, in particular, was pretty poor. Refreshments at break times never seemed to feature hot tea or coffee and the fruit and cake pieces were gone long before everyone reached the tables. There were some really interesting talks but these were arranged in half-day groups on related topics so I found myself wishing I could be in three rooms at once for some topics while I wasn’t particularly inter-ested in anything at other times. That did drive me outside of my immediate areas of interest, though, so maybe that was the point. The single poster session was a disappointment. It was scheduled for 6.00pm when everyone was tired and hungry. There were liter-ally hundreds of posters and it was hard to find the topics you were interested in. There was no way you could see them all even if you had devoted every break to walking about the two poster halls. I received very little feedback – mainly because people didn’t attend. Students put a tremendous amount of thought and time into creating a good impression with their posters. It seemed a shame that many were not rewarded with the kind of feedback that

The Olympic stadium as seen from the congress venue

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I had received the week before. For me, the best part of ICPP 2013 was being able to meet researchers from other countries who are working in the same areas as I am. Being able to ask ques-tions of researchers whose papers you follow is a rare treat. Overall – after the two events – I think what I will remem-ber most is the encouragement and support so willingly and freely offered from experienced researchers to people taking their first steps in a research career. It is a wonderful thing that the BSPP is able to set money aside to ena-ble students to interact with other re-searchers at these events. Robert Saville East Malling Research, UK The tree fruit diseases session kicked off with several talks on canker and trunk diseases in fruit crops. José Ramón Úrbez Torres opened the session with a historical resume of grape vine canker disease biology and epidemiolo-gy and the subsequent development of effective chemical, biological and cultur-al management strategies for their con-trol. The following presentations de-scribed work on bacterial canker (Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae) of kiwi fruit in Italy, Valsa mali canker on apple in China and European canker (Neonectria galligena) on apple in the Netherlands. In this talk Marcel Wenneker explained the difficulties of working with this complex disease on a perennial host, in particular the need for reliable phenotyping for the identifi-cation of resistance markers, an im-portant component in any integrated disease management programme. Fi-nally Marcel emphasised the importance of international cooperation in the de-velopment and implementation of inte-grated control strategies. The knowledge of a pathogen’s epidemiolo-gy applied to an effective disease con-

trol strategy in the field was perhaps best illustrated by Guido Schnabel who presented a paper on a novel cultural approach to managing Armillaria root rot diseases. Guido has shown that planting trees on raised beds and sub-sequently excavating the root crown after two growing seasons, thus raising the vulnerable root crown away from the infection source, results in up to 100% reduction in the mortality rate caused by Armillaria. The conference as a whole was a great experience with the science, entertainment and the cuisine offering great inspiration to me. Xiaolei Jin University of Hertfordshire, UK I enjoyed Beijing 2013 as my first ICPP conference and it was a great oppor-tunity to present my research on inte-grated control of strawberry powdery mildew. I was very excited to see work presented by J. J. Wang about proteo-mic analysis in muskmelon fruits treat-ed with sodium silicate, which related with my work. The work indicates that defence response, redox homeostasis proteins and enzymes associated with energy metabolism were involved in induced resistance of muskmelon fruits by Si. In addition, E. Pérez et al also presented about control of Podosphaera

aphanis in strawberry plants by using potassium salts and essential oils from a Uruguayan plant, which indicated that the treatment was able to significantly reduce spore germination, compare to the untreated control. Thus, it is good to develop a control strategy based on the use of safe molecules and reduces fungicide use. The congress also had a very interesting session on ‘Nanotechnology for Plant Health’, which is a potential novel application for de-fence against plant disease in agricul-ture.

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Avice Hall University of Hertfordshire, UK For me, ICPP was both phytopathologi-cally stimulating and very enjoyable. The plenary sessions, including those on plant pathology in a globalised econo-my, the Food Security session, the lec-ture by Fen Beed, Jacqueline Fletcher speaking on HPOPs, and Abraham Gam-liel on using a systems approach to plant disease control were all memora-ble. Choosing between concurrent ses-sions was difficult but I enjoyed some of the epidemiology sessions, and the final morning on teaching plant pathology. The session ‘Nanotechnology for plant health’ was very informative as well as linking into some of my own work. I also enjoyed listening to my former (undergraduate) student Dr Mike Pear-son speaking on virus diseases of kiwi fruit. The unexpected treat was the evening session on Edible and Medicinal fungi in the USA and China, a wonderful experience with excellent presentations. One or two posters were memorable particularly the poster on disease fore-casting in Norway all conveniently deliv-ered to the ‘farm gate’ via mobile phone. As a research student in 1968 I attended the 1st Congress of Plant Pa-thology at Imperial college, received the first edition of the Plant Pathologists pocket book and was inspired to realise the world wide importance of plant pa-thology. The Beijing congress proved to me that I am still inspired by the world wide significance of plant pathology even though I am semi-retired! Olga Badalyan Belarusian State University, Belarus First and foremost I would like to thank the BSPP for the opportunity to present my research on N. benthamiana - P. carotovorum interactions at ICPP Con-gress in Beijing. The congress included sessions dedicated to all major spheres

of modern phytopathology. One of the most interesting sessions (not only in my opinion judging by the overcrowded room) was "Biotechnological application in plant disease control". Some excel-lent reports on using components of plant signal chains for transgenic plant creation have been presented. For in-stance, Cyril Zipfer has shown the im-portance of new plant pattern recogni-tion receptors, such as EFR (EF-Tu re-ceptor), RP30 of Arabidopsis thaliana, PRRs of grapevines, for creation of sta-ble crops. The report by Martin Dickman on expressing anti-apoptosis genes in banana plant cells in order to prevent Agrobacterium tumefaciens infections was also quite interesting. Masaki Mori has presented his work on identification of the BSR1 cytoplasmatic signal ki-nase. BSR1 overexpression in rice con-ferred resistance to both Xanthomonas

oryzae pv. oryzae and Magnaporthe

oryzae. In addition George Sundin and Quan Zeng have presented valuable reports on participation of small RNAs (e.g. ArcZ) of blight pathogen Erwinia amylovora in regulation of virulence. It was shown that inactivation of hfq (coding for the chaperone for small RNAs, including ArcZ) as well as arcZ results in mobility decrease. It was also shown that ArcZ negatively regulates translation of FlhDC. At the same time ArcZ positively regulates transcription

Olga exploring the surrounding area

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of flhDC. The most up-to-date infor-mation from the Congress on plant PRRs and small RNA regulators is inval-uable for my current research. All of these contributors have expressed their thanks to the BSPP for partially funding their attendance at the Con-

gress, and it just remains for me to thank you for reading their reports, and to alert you to the fact that the 11th ICPP will be in Boston, Massachusetts, USA from July 29 to August 3, 2018. Matt Dickinson University of Nottingham, UK

BSPP Fellowships The BSPP runs three Fellowship schemes to support working visits by individual members to institutions other than their normal place of work for at least one month. Members are welcome to apply for Travel Awards to support shorter visits. The Senior Fellowship scheme is open to anyone who has been a member of BSPP for at least two years and is intended to stimulate and facilitate studies or training to the benefit of plant pathology. Post-graduate student members may apply for Junior Fellowships where the aim is to encourage collaboration and interdisciplinary research, to enable students to acquire new techniques, and to make new contacts. Visits to laboratories in other countries are particularly encouraged. Any applicant must have been a member of BSPP for at least one year and be a post-graduate student at the time the Fellowship award is taken up. The Grace Waterhouse Fellowship has been set up to encourage links between the SASPP and the BSPP, with a particular focus on plant pathologists in the early stages of their careers. The fellowship will be awarded competitively no more than once a year to a junior plant pathologist with high potential. Members of the SASPP in the early stages of their career, studying in a southern African country, may apply to support a working visit of between one and three months to a laboratory in the UK. The aim is to encourage collaboration and interdisciplinary research, to enable students to acquire new techniques, and to make new contacts. Any applicant must have been a member of SASPP for at least one year and must be registered for an MSc by research or PhD at the time the Fellowship award is taken up. Fellowships cover personal costs and a limited amount of research expenses. Members are strongly encouraged to apply and to take advantage of this generous scheme. Full details are on the web at http://www.bspp.org.uk/funds/fellowships.php.

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This summer I was given the opportuni-ty to work in the Plant Pathology Lab at the University of Reading. I was heavily involved with the running of PhD stu-dent Fay Newbery’s experiment. Under the supervision of Professor Michael Shaw, Fay works predominantly with the fungal plant pathogen, Lepto-

sphaeria maculans which infects oilseed rape (Braccica napus), an im-portant biofuel crop, and causes 'stem canker' or 'blackleg'. Cankers formed at the base of the stem and restrict water uptake. Average yield losses are 5-20% and losses worldwide are estimated to be in excess of £1000M per year at to-day’s prices. However in addition to L.

maculans she also works with Lep-

topsheria biglobosa a close relative of L.

macuans which causes less serve can-kers higher up the stem. It is important to understand the varia-bility and heritability of temperature response in plant pathogen populations. This knowledge is essential in order to make accurate predictions of disease prevalence and severity under warmer climate scenarios. The experiment aims to compare over 60 different isolates over a temperature range of 5 – 30⁰C. This is achieved by the use a Temperature Gradient Plate. A 14 by 14 grid covers the surface of a metal plate that can be cooled to 0oC along one edge and heated to 35oC

along the opposite edge. Small plastic boxes containing nutrient agar are each centrally inoculated with a plug covered in actively growing mycelia. These are then placed within the grid after being allowed to reorientate overnight. Boxes are then removed and photographed at regular intervals. My main tasks were to grow the select-ed isolates ready to inoculate the boxes with the mycelia plug, to then prepare and inoculate the boxes, photograph them every day for a week, process these photographs and prepare the next run, I completed 5 runs in total. In or-der to produce a temperature response curve thermobuttons were randomly paced in each row and took a tempera-ture reading every 10 minutes. The processed photographs will then be measured to give radial growth and this will then be plotted against time to give

Temperature response in the fungal plant pathogen Leptospheria maculans

UNDERGRADUATE VACATION BURSARY REPORTS

Georgina setting up an experiment

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Ramularia collo-cygni (Rcc) is a major pathogen of the cereal crop barley. It causes the disease known as Ramularia Leaf Spot (RLS) which results in large yield losses. These losses are due primarily to a loss in green leaf area which is caused by the formation of necrotic lesions surrounded by a chlorotic halo. Seed quality is also affected as many grains do not fill to their potential. A question that arises with many pathogens of cereal crops is how do they re-infect crops year after year, and how do they overwinter? A seed borne stage in the life cycle of Rcc has been described but the fungus has also been observed on some other plant species. Here the ecology and host range of Rcc was investigated to explore the concept of the possibility of agricultural pathogens utilising alternate hosts as a source of inoculum to crops. This project had two parts, one lab based and one field based. The lab based part consisted of examining a range of potential graminaceous hosts

and two model eudicots. Graminaceous hosts were defined as species that would be found in close proximity to cereal crops, e.g. in field margins, adjoining grass pastures or as weeds dispersed amongst the crop. Potential hosts were grown in controlled conditions and leaves were then removed to be inoculated with Rcc via a detached leaf assay. Leaves were monitored both visually for signs of disease (lesions) and microscopically to observe growth patterns of the fungus over a time course. This same time course was used and leaf samples were taken and analysed via quantitative real-time PCR to monitor the amount of fungal DNA present in the infected leaves over time to give a second indication of fungal growth. Results indicated that although growth was slower and more stunted in the grasses compared to the identified host, the fungus was still able to colonise and produce random spores. At 17 days post inoculation (dpi) conidiophores were produced on barley. However, this

An ecological assessment of Ramularia collo-

cygni infection in different temperate plant species

a temperature response curve. In addi-tion to the running of the experiment there were also sideline projects such as isolating new isolates from stem samples and the cleaning of isolates suspected of contamination. Going into my third year of a Biological Sciences degree this placement allowed me to gain valuable experience in the running of a laboratory experiment and the organisation and time management skills required, in addition to the lab

skills. I look forward to applying what I have learnt from my time in the Plant Pathology Lab to my research project this year and so would like to thank the BSPP for providing the funding that made this placement possible. Lastly I would like to thank Fay for the experi-ence and for giving me the chance to contribute to her research. Georgina Mason University of Reading

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was not the case for the grasses, although a longer time course may have produced different results. In the eudicots, fungal growth was severely stunted and disorientated and resulted in cell death of the host tissue. Despite this, after 14 dpi random spores were observed. These results show that Rcc can act opportunistically when not provided with its ideal host and can still sporulate. In a field situation, however, this may not arise. The second part of the project involved going out in to the field and exploring the field margin. 25 sample sites were chosen at random from a 1005m field

perimeter. Grasses were identified and leaf specimens displaying Rcc-like symptoms were collected from these sites and catalogued. Lesions were explored for signs of Rcc infection and where conidiophores that resembled Rcc were observed, single spore isolations were made. Cultures were grown and hyphal structure, conidiophores and spores were examined under the microscope. Some isolates had very similar morphology of conidiophores to Rcc except that spores varied in cell number (1, 2 or three celled), whereas Rcc has single celled spores. Standard PCR produced a positive for Rcc although, due to morphological differences it is suspected that the isolates may be of the genus Ramularia but be a different species. PCR using mating type primers is yet to be run to give a more definitive answer. Seed was also collected in the field to be tested via quantitative real-time PCR to detect where Rcc is present in the seed borne stage of the plant. The fungus appears to have evolved a number of strategies to overwinter. April Armstrong SRUC, Edinburgh

Infection of wild-type Rcc in Hordeum

vulgare cv. Garner stained with Calcofluor White dye and observed under a fluorescence microscope

The effect of trichomes on plant-aphid interactions

The cultivated tomato, Solanum lyco-

persicum, is the world’s second most widely cultivated vegetable crop (after potato), with over 150 million tonnes of fresh fruit produced in 2010 according to the Food and Agriculture Organisa-tion of the UN. However, crop yields are frequently reduced by the activity plant pathogens.

One important pathogen is cucumber mosaic virus (CMV). CMV infects many plants, including tomato. Symptoms include a mosaic pattern on the leaves, stunted growth and decreased fruit yield, yellow streaks or spots on the leaves, malformation of leaves and flower colour breaking. Crop losses are difficult to quantify as they vary de-

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pending on the plant species, the pres-ence of other disease agents and the environmental conditions, although esti-mates have placed losses due to CMV at 25-50% of the total yield of tomato in China. Like two-thirds of all insect-vectored plant viruses, CMV is transmitted be-tween plants by aphids. The two most common aphid species on tomato are the green peach aphid (Myzus persicae) and the potato aphid (Macrosiphum

euphorbiae). In addition to vectoring viruses, aphids feed on phloem sap, reducing the availability of carbohy-drates to the plant, and excrete honey-dew onto the plant surfaces, promoting the growth of sooty moulds. Small hairs on plant tissues, known as trichomes, have been identified as im-portant physical and chemical defences against pests including aphids. Eight types of trichome have been identified in Solanum species, of which six are present in S. lycopersicum. Of these, type I, type VI and type VII trichomes are glandular while type III, type V and type VIII are non-glandular. Type I tri-chomes secrete metabolites from a small glandular cell at the trichome tip, while type VI and VII trichome gland cells produce metabolites which are stored under a waxy cuticle and re-leased in certain environmental condi-tions or upon physical contact. Several S. lycopersicum lines with mutations affecting trichome development and/or patterning have been previously identi-fied. These include hairless (trichomes fail to develop correctly due to stalk cells expanding in random directions to produce blobs of tissue), hairs absent (trichomes fail to develop) and Wooly and Lanata (trichomes overproduced on all organs).

I studied the performance of Myzus

persicae in choice tests, where ten aphids were released in a pot containing two plants of different genotypes and the number of aphids on each plant was recorded after 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 24 hours. In addition, I investigat-ed the survival of Myzus persicae and Macrosiphum euphorbiae on the differ-ent mutant lines. As a further experi-ment, I infected wild type tomato plants with CMV (and mock-inoculated a con-trol group) and carried out choice tests to assess the effect of CMV infection on the plant preference of the aphids. The choice tests indicated a preference of the Myzus persicae for the hairless plants over both the wild type Ailsa Craig and hairs absent plants. This may be linked to an altered volatile profile as a result of the mutation, or the absence of trichomes on the hypocotyl of that mutant line. The survival experiment demonstrated that survival was lower for both aphid species on the Wooly mutants than the hairs absent mutants, indicating a role for type I trichomes in plant defence against Myzus persicae and Macrosiphum euphorbiae. I am very grateful to the BSPP for providing the funding that allowed me

Experimental setup for choice tests

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to take up this project; and to Drs Carr and Groen and Professor Glover who supervised and supported me through-out. The experience of working as part of a research group and the skills I have developed over the course of the place-ment will be invaluable, both as I return

to university for the final year of my undergraduate degree, and in my future career. Josie Maidment University of Cambridge

Genetic and mycotoxin profiling of an epidemic using Fusarium graminearum field populations

Between July and September 2013 I was lucky enough to receive BSPP funding to undertake a research placement at the National Institute of Agr icu ltu ra l Botany (NIAB) in Cambridge. To supplement my academic studies of Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, I undertook a research project on the distribution and diversity of Fusarium

graminearum in a naturally occurring epidemic in the wheat field trials at NIAB, the samples for which had been collected in the summer of 2012. As my work spanned Pathology and Molecular Biology, I undertook work both in the Cereal Pathology group and the Genetics and Breeding group. My supervisors were Dr Jane Thomas and Dr Alison Bentley, but I was able to work with a large variety of NIAB employees. Denise Elliott of the Cereal Pathology group was particularly helpful in my everyday lab work, showing me various techniques that I needed to learn for the project and discussing my progress and results with me regularly. During the project I isolated Fusarium from wheat samples, with the aim of characteriz ing the genet ic and mycotoxin diversity within the epidemic population at NIAB in 2012. I purified

the fungus by single spore isolation techniques and morphologically identified the different species of Fusarium. I extracted genomic DNA from the identified F. graminearum isolates and ran PCRs to test whether the samp les were indeed F .

graminearum and if so, what their mycotoxin profile was. Through these techniques I found that the naturally occurring epidemic at NIAB in 2012 included F. graminearum

strains producing both NIV and DON mycotoxins, as well as other fungal w h e a t p a t h o g e n s , s u c h a s Microdochium nivale and Epicoccum

purpurascens. These species look superficially quite similar to F. graminearum, so I learnt to distinguish them both from observing the structure and colour of the colonies and from looking at their spores. Ideally I would have had more time on the project to look in more depth at the levels of genetic variation in the population and possibly to conduct a phylogenetic comparison of my samples to more geographically widespread populations. I did, however, manage to collect similar wheat samples from this year’s field trials, creating the potential for a student on a similar research placement next summer to continue my work and

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compare levels of Fusarium infection in the wheat fields of NIAB from one year to the next. During my time at NIAB I also had the opportunity to take a break from the laboratory work by spending some time in the field, helping out with assessing the various inoculated field trials. I was also able to visit the NIAB Innovation Farm on a couple of occasions and attend talks and events there on

various topics to do with agricultural biology. My experience at NIAB was enjoyable and as a result I feel more confident in my choice to specialise in Plant Sciences in my final year at University, knowing that I will enjoy the practical aspects of the work as well as the lecture material. Alison Madgwick University of Cambridge

Spatial and temporal resolution of pest and

disease incidence

To ensure food security into the future is, to me, the biggest challenge faced by humanity today. The losses to crop pests pose a serious, yet avoidable, threat to ensuring that the human population is fed. I do not believe, however, that the application of chemical pesticides is the sole way to go about resolving the problem. Not only does the extermination of nearly all other organisms present in or on the soil on which the crops grow deteriorate its quality, but it also results in the necessary replacement of the chemicals removed. The application of synthetic fertilisers is now acknowledged to be unsusta inab le and eco log ica l ly destructive. Thus it was of great interest to me to study the abiotic factors contributing the spatial distribution of crop pests and pathogens and how this distribution has changed latitudinally over time. The ultimate aim of this type of study is to be able to contribute to predictive models of future pest and pathogen ranges, and thus to have a longer-term strategy of ensuring sustainable food security. In light of contemporary concerns of

food security and the crop losses attributed to pests and pathogens, this study aimed to provide a first assessment of the broad abiotic and possible biotic factors affecting the current spatial crop pest and pathogen distribution in the USA as a model to be extrapolated. Moreover, following on from a recent study of global crop pest and pathogen latitudinal range shifts over time, this study also aimed to identify trends in latitudinal range shifts over the past 50 years in the USA, (Bebber, Ramotowski, and Gurr, 2013, Nature Climate Change). The results found are as follows; 1. Crop pathogen species belonging to the taxonomic group Fungi were found to be the most widespread. Within the Fungi, the genus Puccinia and the species Puccinia graminis were found to be most prevalent. 2. Agricultural productivity and average annual temperature were found to have a significant positive correlative effect on total pest and pathogen load. The same two factors were then found to be the most commonly significant factors on pest and pathogen load for each taxonomic group tested.

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3. Average USA agricultural productivity was found to have increased steadily and linearly from 1960 to 2004. 4. The average latitudinal shift of all crop pest and pathogen species investigated revealed a significant northwards movement between 1960 and 2010. However, the average latitudinal shift of each taxonomic group varied, with a small number of groups displaying a southward movement and the majority a northward shift. A large proportion of my time was spent reading papers on the different proposed factors affecting pest and pathogen distributions and how these are likely to change in the future with the uncertain predictions of climate change in mind. I also spent a considerable amount of time thinking about how to best use the data that was made available to me and how I could follow up previous studies. Given the results of my analyses I then returned to my paper reading in order to have the most-up to date knowledge to interpret what I had found.

Asides from learning a lot about the current debates on how to best tackle the problem of food security, and about the most economically important pests and their modes of infection and proliferation, I learnt how to write a scientific paper. At the moment I am in the final year of my undergraduate degree, and so, even though I will maintain a keen interest in crop pests and pathogens, I will expand my horizons with the study of other subjects within the Biology course as well. I hope that this expansion will provide new ways of looking at my interests. Next academic year, I hope to go on and do an MSc in Anthropology, Environment and Development. I hope that this bridging with the social science of Anthropology will allow me to bring my expertise to the benefit of the new field, and, again, for me to gain a new perspective on the subject of food security. Mara Carraro Oxford University

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal colonisation of different barley varieties

My project was based on the trade-off between symbiosis and disease resistance on barley. I focused on symbiosis. According to various usage areas the production rate of barley is the fourth in the world. During agricultural processes, phosphate uptaken from the soil is a problem and adding extra phosphate can be considered a solution however, it causes precipitation of insoluble phosphates. To support sustainable agricultural practises for growing barley we cannot keep adding phosphate to

the soil forever. The most efficient and natural way to increase phosphorus nutrition in barley is arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) symbiosis. The symbiotic relationship between AM fungus and barley provides nutrient exchange for both organisms. My first objective was to see if barley can be infected by Glomus intraradices, with the plants grown under low P and N conditions to encourage symbiosis. Vermiculite was used, and the nutritional requirements of plants

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provided by use of the hydroponic nutrient solution Hoagland solution. To inoculate the plants vermiculite was mixed with soil that previously grew inoculated chives plants. To provide healthy growth of plants, 100ml Hoagland solution was added per week and the procedure was carried out for 4 weeks. After that the roots were cleaned and stained with ink at 96°C using 10% KOH and ink solution (5% ink and 5% acetic acid). General light microscopy was used to observe coloni-sation of G. intraradices on barley roots. To see the variation in the amount of colonization 3 barley varieties were used; Tipple, Chevallier and Armelle. Plants were grown for 6 weeks under the same conditions, and the roots cleaned and stained with ink. The samples are counted by using Gridline Intersection Method. Armelle has 9.6%, Tipple has 31.9% and Chevallier has 32.8% AM root colonization, and the colonization average of Armelle was significantly different from Tipple and Chevallier. To quantify mycorrhizal specific genes qPCR was done with these 3 different barley varieties (5 weeks old). 4

biological samples were used per variety, 2 of them were inoculated and the other 2 were grown as controls. To increase the surface area for nutrient exchange G. intraradices forms arbuscule structures in root cells so HORvu;Pht1;8, HORvu;Pht1;1 and HORvu;Pht1;2 phosphate transporter genes were examined to understand the effects of symbiosis on gene expression. According to the qPCR results expression of HORvu;Pht1;1 and HORvu;Pht1;2 were confirmed for both conditions, however expression of HOR-vu;Pht1;8 gene is strongly induced by mycorrhizal colonization. I learnt a lot of new things that will be very helpful for my career and educa-tion in this amazing internship. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr Chris Ridout for his kind-ness, guidance and precious advice throughout my study. Also thanks to BSPP for their support which allowed me to study this exciting research for my summer internship. Hicret Aslı Yalçin Izmir Institute of Technology, Turkey

Four week old AM inoculated Chevallier roots, from right to left blue images are arbuscules, vesicles and hyphae they can be seen in cortex of the root

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I worked alongside another intern, Alex Blackwell as part of Dr Pietro Spanu’s reseach group at Imperial College Lon-don. They work with the Ascomycete Blumeria graminis, the fungus that causes powdery mildew, an important disease that has devastating effects on wheat and barley crop productivity. The pathogenicity of the fungus is increased by effector proteins which are secreted upon infection and interact with the host’s immune system. More than 500 candidate effectors have been identified making up over 7% of the host’s ge-nome. Some of these have been identi-fied by mass spectrometry and are re-ferred to as Blumeria Effector Candi-dates (BEC). BEC 1011 & 1054 have been shown to be necessary for full pathogenic devel-opment in B. graminis infections of bar-ley. They are believed to competitively bind to host ribosomal subunits exclud-ing ribosome inactivating proteins and preventing the process of programmed cell death to ensure a continued food source for the fungus. The aim of the summer project was to investigate the effect of expressing barley powdery mildew BEC 1011 or 1054 in transgenic Triticum aestivum (wheat) on powdery mildew development. Four plants from eight lines (two for each of the four genotypes being inves-tigated) were grown and DNA was ex-tracted from the 1st leaf for qPCR analy-sis to confirm the genotypes. Once they had developed sufficiently four 2cm segments were cut from the 2nd leaf of each plant. These were then placed, vein side down, onto agar and benzim-idazole plates and heavily infected

plants were shaken over them to re-lease spores and inoculate. The seg-ments were left for two days to allow the infection to progress to a stage where successful penetration and the formation of a functional haustorium would be clearly visible by the presence of extended hyphae on the leaf’s sur-face. This time point was also chosen to allow individual colonies to be identified and to be before conidiophore develop-ment which would cause secondary infections to occur. The infected leaf segments were stained in Trypan Blue which is retained more strongly by the fungus than by the leaf and can be vis-ualised under a light microscope. The number of conidia with secondary germ tubes was used as a base value for the density of inoculation and spores that had extended hyphae represented suc-cessful infections. The genotyping results showed that the BEC 1054 lines were as expected but the BEC 1011 lines were not, which

Pathogenicity factors in Blumeria graminis infections

Blumeria graminis 48hrs after infection

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could have been as a result of our tech-nique or from incorrect progeny selec-tion. This calls into question the validity of the count data for BEC 1011 and it has therefore been excluded. The BEC 1054 lines initially showed a higher lev-el of infection in the homozygous plants than in the azygous ones and the differ-ence was statistically significant. Unfor-tunately this result was not reproducible with the second repeat showing a simi-lar but non-significant trend and the third repeat showing no trend at all. Our data does not confirm or refute that there is an interaction occurring be-

tween BEC 1054 or BEC 1011 and the host proteins. The summers work has increased my skill in the lab immensely, I now have a stronger idea of what post graduate study entails and great excitement for it. I would like to thank both the BSPP and Dr Spanu for making it possible as well as Alex Blackwell and the rest of the research group for making it so enjoyable. Max Wilkinson

The effect of PAMPs on plant growth and stress

In the summer before my final year studying Biochemistry, I had the privilege of working with Dr. Radhika Deiskan in the laboratory at Imperial College London. The basis of my project was to investigate the effect of pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) on plant growth and stress. Most of Dr Deiskan’s work has focused on the model organism of choice for research in plant biology, Arabidopsis

thaliana, however it was decided that wheat would be used to investigate and confirm previous findings with A.

thaliana. Chitin is a PAMP derived from fungal cell walls, and is released during infection of the plant host. Recognition of chitin induces plant defence mechanisms leading to innate immunity in plants. Little is known about the molecular mechanism of chitin signalling and therefore I was very excited to be investigating this area. My project addressed several questions. Firstly, it has been proven that chitin treatment alters root morphology. To investigate this, a series of experiments with varying chitin concentrations (50, 100, 200, 500µl) was set up. Wheat

seedlings were sown on filter paper treated with chitin, and left to germinate for 4 days in the dark followed by 4 days in the light. Germination scores of the seedlings were recorded before the seedlings were moved into the light, and the fresh weight of the seedlings was assessed on the 8th day. Photographs of roots were taken where interesting root hair patterns were observed; plant root architecture is highly responsive to water and nutrient (chitin) availability. Using simple physiological measurements of the root and shoot length, as well as the seedling fresh weight (roots and shoots but seed removed), enabled rapid data collection and easy viewing of trendlines and data patterns. Having germinated 60 seeds at each chitin concentration, I assumed that a clear trend would be visible. This however was not the case, and insignificant changes in root length or fresh weight was seen across the varying chitin concentrations when compared to the control. Statistical analysis highlighted the high standard error present within the germination

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data, making any conclusive results difficult to validate. Following on from wheat germination on chitin, chitin treatment post germination was examined. Wheat seedlings were sown on filter paper with sterilised distilled water (SDW) and left to germinate for 4 days in the dark. Germination was scored on the 4th day, the seedlings were individually moved onto varying chitin treatments and left to germinate for 8 days in the light. On the 8th day of light exposure, the fresh weight as well as root and shoot length were recorded. Chitin concentrations at 50 µl and 100 µl were seen to increase root length, whereas chitin concentrations at 200 µl and 500 µl decreased root length, in comparison to the control (SDW) and 2 sample T-test was significant. Nitric oxide (NO) is a key signalling molecule in plants, regulating both plant development and growth. The effect of NO on wheat germination and the fresh weight, root and shoot length was investigated. The effect of the NO scavenger CPTIO (200µl) and varying chitin concentrations (50, 100, 200 and 500µl) on wheat germination and post germination was tested. Chitin 200 µl with CPTIO 200 µl, 100 µl and 50 µl concentrations showed sequential decrease root length, this data was statistically significant. Chitin 500 µl plus CPTIO 50 µl increased root length by almost 2cm. It was clear that there was a delicate balance between CPTIO levels and their effect on germination. For post germination, the addition of CPTIO (200µl) to chitin 100 µl, 200 µl and 500 µl, resulted in a decreasing root length and decreasing fresh weight (roots and shoots) trends. To further study germination, resistance

against drought was explored. Resistance against drought ensures a stable plant and chitin treatment has been found to offer drought protection in plants, but the process by which this occurs is not known. It has been proposed that the redox balance in plants is altered by chitin treatment, thereby offering drought tolerance. To investigate the effect of chitin on drought tolerance of wheat seedlings, seedlings were germinated on varying chitin concentrations (50, 100, 200, 500µl), and subjected to osmotic stress, by use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 6000 (15%), on the 8th day of germination. A 5 hour time exposure to PEG was run, every hour testing the fresh weight of the seedlings. This part of my project proved very challenging, with both PEG and SDW samples for each chitin concentration needing to be run simultaneously, and over 20 seedlings at each chitin concentration. I quickly learned to be organised and work efficiently. The results were very clear, both chitin 100 µl and 200 µl showed loss of water, over 6% total water loss by 5 hours in PEG treatment. Running parallel experiments with SDW controls allowed data comparison and this taught me that good experimental design is extremely important. It is far better to plan out every step and think about realistic timelines than to rush and try to do too much at once. Final experiments combined all of the elements I had explored earlier, coupling CPTIO (200µl) with addition of PEG 6000 (15%) and varying chitin (50, 100, 200, 500µl) concentrations. Signalling pathways and cell biology have always been of interest to me throughout my undergraduate studies and it was both enjoyable and fascinating to be conducting research in this area. Not only was I was able to

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apply my biochemical knowledge to signalling pathways and interplays, but I learned an enormous amount about plant physiology and development. My project enabled me to become more confident in laboratory practices, as well as becoming comfortable with statistics, data handling and data presentation. I would like to thank Dr. Desikan for her

support, time and care over the course of the project, and also the BSPP as without them, this research studentship opportunity would not have arisen. Alicia P-Neophytou University of Warwick

Studying the role of pathogenicity effectors in altering host immune responses

During this project, I worked with Dr. Daniel Tomé in Professor Jim Beynon’s lab at the University of Warwick. The team works on effector interactions, in the Hylaoperonospera arabidopsidis (Hpa) pathosystem, with the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (At). Pathogens produce a set of proteins called effectors that supress the host immune system. The group at Warwick have cloned more than 200 putative effector genes from Hpa. The presence of effector proteins in the plant cell cannot only induce susceptibility but also trigger resistance, if they are detected by plant resistance proteins. This resistance is manifested as localised cell death, or the hypersensitive response (HR). In host defence responses the plant hormone salicylic acid (SA) induces a set of genes, such as PR1, that are involved in host immunity. Therefore, I screened a library of effector candidates from Hpa for activity in supressing SA mediated gene induction or the HR. These screens were both done by simultaneously transforming reporter genes and the effector candidates into protoplasts of At. For the SA mediated immunity screen, a PR1:GUS transgenic line of plants in a Col-0 background

were used to produce the protoplasts. SA was added to these protoplasts and the GUS activity was measured in the presence or absence of individual effectors. A reduction in GUS activity from the PR1:GUS fusion compared to the control would suggest that the effector was suppressing SA mediated gene induction. This assay is limited to those effectors that interact downstream of SA production and would not reveal a class that prevented the synthesis of SA. I found some potentially positive effectors in this assay, which are being retested by the Warwick group. The At accession Ksk-1 carries the resistance protein RPP13 which recognises the effector protein ATR13 and triggers HR. Hence, protoplasts were made from this accession and transformed with PBDex:GUS, PBDex:ATR13 and an effector candidate. The production of the ATR13 protein was induced with dexamethasone, which would trigger cell death unless prevented by the presence of the novel effector protein. Any reduction of cell death was measured by the levels of GUS activity produced, as this was also driven by the addition of dexamethasone. Dead cells

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would not produce GUS and, therefore, higher GUS levels than the control would imply a role of the effector in repressing HR. The HR screen ran into several issues and was only optimised towards the end of my placement, so no results were generated. During this project in addition to gaining general lab experience, I learned various different techniques, including cloning, protoplast production, protoplast transformation and GUS and luciferase assays. I learned a great deal

about the basis of host pathogen interactions which I feel will be helpful for a future in molecular plant pathology, particularly for my final year project of my degree. As part of the group I was involved in regular presentations and learned how groups work together to discuss and help with the work of others. Tom Adams University of Cambridge

Infection efficiency of aggressive Phytophthora

infestans genotypes at different temperatures

I was based at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee under the supervision of Dr David Cooke. Dr Cooke conducts research into pathogenic Phytophthora monitoring and management. Potato Late Blight (Phytophthora in festans ) is a devastating disease of potatoes in temperate climates. Control is difficult as most forms of host resistance have been quickly overcome, and fungicide can only act protectively. This means that disease forecasting is an important tool to help growers make decisions to the timing of fungicide applications. The risk of a late blight outbreak is forecast by monitoring for periods of cool and humid weather which favour the pathogen’s infection, development, and reproduction lifecycle. However, changes in the UK P. infestans population have seen the emergence of aggress ive new genotypes, which are active at lower temperatures than what is expected for P. infestans. Investigating the efficacy of low temperature infection is essential

to maintain accurate forecasting. Two aggressive P. infestans genotypes (Blue 13 and Pink 6) were examined at different temperatures, between 6 oC and 27 oC, to evaluate their infection efficiency. Detached potato leaflets of the

Leaflets showing late blight infections at inoculation points

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susceptible variety Maris Piper were each inoculated with six 10µl drops of sporangia solution. The leaflets were held in lined petri dishes and placed in a controlled environment gradient plate, which was used to keep the leaflets at the desired temperature. After 7 days the leaflets were scored for infection. Infection efficiency was calculated based on number of inoculation spots which resulted in a viable infection, and the number of sporangia per droplet. This gives the probability that one sporangia will result in a viable infection at a given temperature. Pink 6 had a significantly higher IE at 6oC than Blue 13. This contradicts earlier JHI studies which showed that Blue 13 had a greater lesion growth rate at low temperatures than Pink 6. It may not be possible to evaluate P.infestans genotype’s aggressiveness at cold temperatures based on s ing le parameters alone. However, calculating the sporangia concentrations based on dilutions was found to be ineffective, and the results may have been affected. Similar experiments examining lesion growth rate and sporulation were completed but achieved limited success due to mistakes with set up and design.

The focus of the project shifted to i n f e c t i o n e f f i c i e n c y d u e t o improvements made to the experiment design over the summer. Attempts to control humidity with silica gel were unsuccessful. In addition to my project, I was able to help with an ongoing study into Phytophthora species in the natural environment. This allowed me to learn and attempt diagnostic techniques including: the preparation of specialist media; DNA extraction; PCR and gel electrophoresis. I have developed an interest in the diagnostic side of plant pathology, and I intend to improve my lab skills in my final year at Scotland’s Rural College through my honours project and additional work experience. I would like to thank my supervisor Dr David Cooke for his support and encouragement throughout the summer; and also to thank the JHI staff: Dr Eva Randal, Dr Julie Squires, Dr Alison Lees, and Louise Sullivan for their help and guidance. Stephen Kemp Scotland’s Rural College

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Serine hydroxyl methyl transferase (SHM) is a common enzyme present in all living cells. SHMs in plants are encoded by gene families with seven members in Arabidopsis. They play multiple functions in plant metabolism. SHMs are involved in cellular one-carbon pathways by providing one-carbon units from serine catabolism. Mitochondrial SHM1 is obligatory for the functioning of the photorespiratory glycolate cycle in plants and has been shown to be involved in plant defence. The function of SHM6 is not known yet. The lack of knowledge regarding SHM6 function in plant defence and its predicted presence in the nucleus made SHM6 an interesting topic for further investigation. In a three month project run in Dr Gail Preston’s lab at the University of Oxford, we aimed to investigate the role of SHM6 in plant defence against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000. For this purpose we designed several experiments in which we used Arabidopsis thaliana wild type plants (WT), AtSHM6 knockout mutant plants, and virulent and avirulent strains of Pseudomonas

syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst) with and without the effector gene avrB. The role of SHM6 in plant defence pathways was monitored by studying bacterial growth in planta, ROS production, NO emission and electrolyte leakage from infected leaves. Plant defence is a

complex response and various signals and enzymes are involved in defence. If pathogen is recognized as avirulent, resistance genes are activated, which leads to reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and subsequently to the hypersensitive response (HR). The HR results is the rapid death of cells in the local region surrounding the infected place to deprive pathogens of nutrients and water and to prevent the spread of infection. All of the experiments used WT and SHM6 mutant plants, infiltrated with a virulent strain of Pst at 107 cfu/ml unless otherwise noted. In bacterial growth experiments inoculated leaves were harvested on each of 4 following days after infiltration and homogenised in MgCl2. The obtained solution was plated on bacterial growth media and after incubation bacterial colonies were counted. The results showed a higher number of bacteria in shm6 mutant leaves, which suggested that the shm6 plant was more sensitive to Pst infection. ROS production level was monitored by 3',3'-diaminobenzidine tetra-hydrochloride (DAB) staining for hydrogen peroxide. Inoculated leaves from WT and SHM6 plants were harvested after each time point and stained for 24 hours in DAB solution. The results indicated slightly higher

The role of serine hydroxy methyl transferase 6 (SHM6) in plant defence against Pseudomonas

syringae pv. tomato DC3000

MASTERS VACATION BURSARY REPORT

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production of H2O2 in shm6 plants after 24 hours after infiltration with Pst,

which was consistent with the observation that shm6 is more susceptible to Pst. Nitric oxide emission from inoculated plants was measured using a chemiluminescence method. In response to avirulent pathogen attack plant cells produce NO, which can contribute to cell death, but little is known about NO production induced by virulent strains. Therefore NO emission by plants was measured using a chemiluminescence method. The results showed that WT plants inoculated with Pst produced more NO in comparison to shm6, which was in contrast to what we expected. There is a possibility that NO rapidly reacted with ROS in shm6 and therefore we could not detect increased emission. To test this theory peroxynitrate levels were measured in the same plants that were used for NO measurement. Peroxynitrate can be formed as a result of interaction between NO and ROS. In this experiment we observed a higher level of peroxynitrate in shm6, which suggested that ROS reacted with NO. These results were therefore consistent with the higher sensitivity of shm6 plants to Pst invasion. In the final experiment, conductivity in inoculated WT and shm6 plants was measured. Disc samples were taken from infected leaves, which were placed in deionised water and then readings were taken. The experiment was done with both virulent and avirulent strains of Pst. In the case of the virulent strain we observed much higher conductivity

in disc samples from shm6, which suggested there was more electrolyte leakage caused by cell death. In the test with avirulent strain we obtained the opposite result. Higher conductivity in WT plants infiltrated with avirulent Pst was associated with the HR. This means the results of both experiment indicated higher susceptibility of shm6. All the experiments provide strong support for the theory that shm6 is involved in defence response mechanisms in plants against Pst infection. I would like to thank Dr Gail Preston and Dr Jagadis Kapuganti for excellent supervision and helpful suggestions. Thanks also go to the laboratory members who gave me advice and knowledge for the work. During these 12 weeks I have gained experience in lab work, developed analytical thinking and technical skills. This experience will be highly beneficial for my final year studies and scientific career. I would like to say thank you for the chance given to me by the BSPP to take part in this project. Milena Molasy

Structure of the SHM6 gene

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Across 1 Pantoea can be a bare one, unusually (8) 5 Once lively and knowledgeable (6) 9 With a little laugh, It Girl destroys trees (7) 10 Apprentice statistician (7) 11 Burn the blotch! (5) 13 Tyro likes playing with pesticidal rocks (9) 15 Victoria may attack poor cat in distress

(3,4) 16 Augustus eats raspberry leaves (7) 19 DNA sample in confusing text about re-

verse transporter (7) 22 Neutered oracle is a rotter (7) 24 Poor serfs labour to serve top academic

(9) 27 With fermented ale, I'd make perfect gas

(5) 28 Eleven bears disturbed where plants are

cold-hardy (7) 29 In a PCR cycle, are reagents more obvi-

ous? (7) 31 Greeting Fiona briefly sounds mouldy (6) 32 Awkward mule in Bari consumes grass (8) Down 1 Result of sex: OAP scores! (shakily...) (9) 2 Tropical crop conceals large rodent in Nor-

folk river (7)

3 Messenger escapes from prison in carnage (3)

4 Pirate's threat to roses (5,4) 6 Appearance of midge gall – or of dolphin

family? (3-4) 7 Where buffalo roam, from smallest to larg-

est (5) 8 Grey – specifically, like Botrytis (4) 12 Membrane around queen is susceptible to

Striga (5) 14 Of blessed memory? No, it's still a pest of

wheat (3) 16 Empire's ethical lack of these troubles isn't

theoretical (9) 17 Noiselessy, intrepid search finds dish (5) 18 Hero hides Luria broth in diseased barley

(9) 20 Reload web page about newly-cut vegeta-

bles (7) 21 Former Communists are on the same side

(3) 23 Strangely, rarer ion loses current? That’s

wrong (2,5) 25 Train yourself to discover weather for

splash-dispersal (5) 26 Working workmate thrives on fruit (4) 30 At first, every leaf mattered for threatened tree (3)

AMostlyPathologicalCrosswordbyCryptogam

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2014 BSPP BOARD MEMBERS BSPP President: Prof Lesley Torrance The James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie, Dundee, DD2 5DA, Scotland, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 844 928 5428; e-mail: president@bspp.org.uk BSPP President-Elect: Prof Gary Foster (Chair, Fellowship Committee) School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1UG, UK. Tel: +44 (0)117 928 7474; Fax: +44 (0)117 925 7374; e-mail: presidentelect@bspp.org.uk BSPP Vice-President: Dr Julie Flood (Chair, Travel Committee) CABI, UK (Egham), Bakeham Lane, Egham, Surrey, TW20 9TY Tel: +44 (0)1491 829043; e-mail: vicepresident@bspp.org.uk BSPP Secretary: Dr Roger Williams Director of Research and Development, Foundation for Arable Research, PO Box 23133, Templeton, Christ-church, 8445, New Zealand. Tel: +64 (0)3 345 5783; e-mail: secretary@bspp.org.uk BSPP Treasurer: Dr Paul Nicholson Department of Disease and Stress Biology, John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park, Colney Lane, Nor-wich, NR4 7UH, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1603 450 616 Fax: +44 (0)1603 450 045; e-mail: treasurer@bspp.org.uk BSPP Programme Secretary: Dr Elizabeth Orton Department of Disease and Stress Biology, John Innes Centre, Colney, Norwich, Norfolk, NR4 7UH, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 1603 450 000; e-mail: meetings@bspp.org.uk BSPP Membership Secretary: Dr Sam Lee Rothamsted Research, West Common, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 2JQ, UK. e-mail: membership@bspp.org.uk Elected Board Members Dr Amanda Bennett (Publicity Officer), HGCA, Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, Stone-leigh Park, Kenilworth, Warwickshire, CV8 2TL, UK. Tel: +44(0) 247 669 2051; e-mail: publicity@bspp.org.uk Dr Siân Deller (Industrial Liason Officer), Biological Sciences, Syngenta, Jealott’s Hill International Research Centre, Bracknell, RG42 6EY, UK. Tel: 01344 414 612; e-mail: sian.deller@syngenta.com Dr James M. Fountaine (Education Officer), Crop and Soil Systems Research, SRUC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JG, UK. Tel: 0131 535 4370; e-mail: education@bspp.org.uk Dr Paul Beales (Outreach), Pest and disease identification, Fera, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ, UK. email: paul.beales@fera.gsi.gov.uk Dr Kerry Maguire (Travel Grants), PGRO, Great North Road, Thornhaugh, Peterborough, PE8 6HJ, UK. Tel: +44 (0) 844 928 5428; email: kerry@pgro.org Invited to attend board meetings by invitation (not Board members) Senior Editor, Plant Pathology: Prof Matt Dickinson School of Biosciences, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington Campus, Loughborough LE12 5RD, UK. Tel: +44 (0)115 951 3236; Fax: +44 (0)115 951 6334; e-mail: plantpath@bspp.org.uk Senior Editor, Molecular Plant Pathology: Dr Marty Dickman Bourlag Advanced Research Center, Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, Texas A&M University, 2123 TAMU, College Station, Texas 77843, USA. Tel: +1 979 862 4788; Fax +1 979 862 4790; e-mail: mpp@bspp.org.uk Senior Editor, New Disease Reports: Dr Robert Black Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich at Medway, Central Avenue, Chatham Maritime, Chat-ham, Kent, ME4 4TB, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1634 883 564; Fax +44 (0)1634 883 567; e-mail: ndr@bspp.org.uk Editor, Newsletter: Dr Jennifer Hodgetts The Food and Environment Research Agency, Sand Hutton, York, YO41 1LZ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1904 462 330; e-mail: bsppnews@bspp.org.uk Membership Administrator: Dr Diane E. Brown 57 Heath Road, Hockering, Dereham, Norfolk, NR20 3JA, UK. Tel: 44 (0)1603 880 313; Fax: 44 (0)1603 208 493; e-mail: membership@bspp.org.uk BSPP Outeach officer: Katie Tomlinson School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1UG, UK. Tel: +44 (0)784 261219; e-mail: outreach@bspp.org.uk Tel: +44 (0)7500 014 160; e-mail: jpeart@illumina.com BSPP Webmanager: Mr William Kay Room 109, Geoffrey Pope Building, Biosciences, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter, EX4 4QD, UK. e-mail: webmanager@bspp.org.uk