{"id":7966,"date":"2018-02-15T20:16:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T20:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainableagriculturewaitrose.org\/?p=7966"},"modified":"2018-02-15T20:16:26","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T20:16:26","slug":"niab-emr-china-research-unlocks-strawberry-disease-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/2018\/02\/15\/niab-emr-china-research-unlocks-strawberry-disease-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"NIAB EMR-China research unlocks strawberry disease resistance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-7967\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/files\/2018\/03\/food-3221092_640.jpg?resize=300%2C200\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/files\/2018\/03\/food-3221092_640.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/files\/2018\/03\/food-3221092_640.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.emr.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NIAB EMR<\/a>, in a joint UK\u2013China research programme, has discovered several strains of the strawberry disease Verticillium wilt (<em>Verticillium dahliae<\/em>), belonging to two different groups, that act in very different ways. The results are already being used by plant breeders in the development of a new generation of wilt resistant varieties.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Plant pathologist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emr.ac.uk\/rong-fan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rong Fan<\/a> identified two fungal strains from two distinct vegetative compatibility groups \u2013 meaning that there is very limited genetic exchange between them. Each strain of the fungus has a different mechanism by which it infects the host plant, with one of the strains producing more symptoms than the other.<\/p>\n<p>Verticillium wilt, a soil-borne disease, has been a major economic disease for strawberry growers around the world (as well as infecting at least another 200 crops) and a major driver for growers to switch to substrate production bags rather than growing in soil.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.emr.ac.uk\/staff\/dr-richard-j-harrison\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dr Richard Harrison<\/a>, Head of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emr.ac.uk\/horticultural-research-programmes\/genetics-crop-improvement\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Genetics, Genomics and Breeding<\/a> at NIAB EMR in Kent, says, \u201cOur strawberry breeding programme produces globally important new varieties. Key to the successful export of these varieties, which bring intellectual property (IP) revenues back to the UK, is the plant\u2019s ability to resist economically important diseases such as Verticillium wilt. Using this exciting new knowledge, published in the journal\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0191824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PLOS ONE<\/a><\/em>, we can choose the right parents, within our breeding programmes, to generate the next generation of wilt-resistant varieties for a worldwide market.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ms Fan, a visiting researcher at NIAB EMR from China\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.nwsuaf.edu.cn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Northwest A&amp;F University<\/a> as part of the Building High Level University Program initiative of the China Scholarship Council (CSC), says, \u201cVerticillium wilt is known to be a very variable disease. With this new knowledge researchers have been able to go back over their historic pathogen collections and determine that the two \u2018groups\u2019 have always been present. The next step will be to determine if the two strains can be identified separately in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The recent collaboration between NIAB EMR and Northwest A&amp;F University, builds on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbsrc.ac.uk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BBSRC<\/a>-funded research looking at the genetic basis of Verticillium wilt within the IDRIS initiative (Improving Disease Resistance in Strawberry).<\/p>\n<p>Read the paper in <em>PLoS ONE:\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0191824\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vegetative compatibility groups partition variation in the virulence of Verticillium dahliae on strawberry<\/a>\u00a0(Open Access).<\/p>\n<p><em>Article source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emr.ac.uk\/press-releases\/niab-emr-china-research-unlocks-strawberry-disease-resistance\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NIAB EMR<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"excerpt\">NIAB EMR, in a joint UK\u2013China research programme, has discovered several strains of the strawberry disease Verticillium wilt (Verticillium dahliae), belonging to two different groups, that act in very different ways. The results are already being used by plant breeders in the development of a new generation of wilt resistant varieties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":381,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[224,284,335,491,497,795,815,848,904,976,981,994,1096,1097,1237,1238],"class_list":["post-7966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-china-bbsrc","tag-crop-protection","tag-disease-resistance","tag-genetics","tag-genomics","tag-niab-emr","tag-northwest-af-university","tag-pathogen","tag-plos-one","tag-resistance","tag-richard-harrison","tag-rong-fan","tag-strawberries","tag-strawberry-wilt","tag-verticillium-dahliae","tag-verticillium-wilt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/sustainable-agriculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}