Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CEREALPATH (CEREALPATH - Training in innovative and integrated control of cereal diseases)

Teaser

There is a massive effort needed to ensure security of food supply for the growing world population in the fact of ever increasing constraints on resources.Cereals, including wheat, maize and rice, are the most important source of human calories. Wheat production underpins...

Summary

There is a massive effort needed to ensure security of food supply for the growing world population in the fact of ever increasing constraints on resources.

Cereals, including wheat, maize and rice, are the most important source of human calories. Wheat production underpins food security and it is estimated that yields must at least double by 2050 to meet future demands. Diseases reduce both the yield and food safety of cereal grains and compromise food security. Improving plant disease resistance has to be a top priority if we are to improve food productivity in order to feed the world population in 2050. We lose billions of Euro worth of grain annually to diseases, particularly those caused by fungi. The top ten pathogens of plants in terms of economic and scientific importance include pathogens that cause diseases of leaves, roots and heads of European and global cereals

We need new weapons in the fight against cereal diseases: CerealPath brings together the people with the expertise to develop these tools.

The principal objective of CerealPath is to use a multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral team to train Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) in the broad spectrum of skills and competencies necessary to innovate in the field of sustainable cereal production, thus contributing to the goal of doubling cereal production by 2050 in order to feed the growing world population.

In order to achieve this, CerealPath brings together academic, industrial and regulatory expertise from eight European countries, to stimulate innovation in the field of integrated disease control and fill the gap in this field that has evolved due to the decline in national, EU and global educational resources.

By providing our ESRs with an integrated training and research programme that covers topics ranging from creativity and innovation to cereal pathology, socio-economic impacts of crop production to plant diseases and disease control practices, policy and legislation impacts on crop production practices to cutting edge cereal and pathogen technology and plant science, disease diagnostics and sustainable pesticide usage, it is hoped that they leave CerealPath as true “T-shaped” researchers, with a broad understanding of the issues, concerns and constraints around cereal production and food security while also exhibiting deep discipline-specific knowledge associated with their particular research area.

Work performed

This CerealPath work programme involves 10 beneficiaries and 11 partner organisations from across Europe, encompassing academia, industry and government agencies, each with specific and complementary competencies in the areas of gene discovery and breeding, biological and bioactive disease control and trade-off and pathogen evolution. These specific research areas are augmented by a variety of network-wide training events, meetings, and symposia, supported by an extensive management and support function.

Over the course of the first 24 months of the Action, the focus has been on the management and implementation of the Action and the starting of scientific work programme.

The Action began in September 2015 with a meeting of the Consortium to discuss the start of the programme and to decide on the first steps required to implement the Action. These included the finalising of the Consortium Agreement, the development of an online presence, beginning the recruitment process and preparing to welcome the ESRs to the Action. Once the general management structures were in place, it was possible to focus on the implementation of the training and research plans.

A total of five network-wide training events took place over the course of the first two years of the Action. The purpose of these training events was two-fold: it was a mechanism to bring the Consortium members, particularly the ESRs, together and it provided access to world-class training in areas relevant to the Action (e.g. plant pathogens, agronomy and economics, policy, bioactive and biological controls, pesticide use) as well as soft skills that would contribute to the overall development of the ESR (e.g. presentations skills, data management, scientific writing, innovation).

In addition to training in these areas, research teams worked on individual projects associated with the research strands of the project:

For the Gene Discovery and Breeding strand, we have seen the construction of mutant libraries of the fungus responsible for global stem rust epidemics in the Triticeae species. These libraries are being used to dissect virulence and host resistance to stem rust by determining which rust strains are now virulent against known stem rust resistance genes. For leaf rust, wheat mutants that contain two known leaf rust QTLs are being used to sequence and characterise the leaf rust resistance genes. For Fusarium diseases, homoeologues of know Fusarium Head Blight resistance genes are being identified and characterised and novel plant populations and mutants are being used to dissect resistance to Fusarium Seedling Blight and Take All disease, using orthologous gene discovery in model plant species.

Within the Bioactive and Biological Control strand, a range of biocontrol agents are being tested for their use as disease control agents in crops. From these projects, we have seen confirmation of the potential uses of these agents, including antifungal activity, and we have made advances in understanding how to maximise our repertoire of biocontrol agents using varied selection media. Furthermore, we have increased our understanding of RNAi and host induced gene silencing (HIGS).

For the Pathogen Evolution and Trade-Off strand, we have started to untangle the dual role of genes that confer resistance or susceptibility to disease. Furthermore, new resistance genes and pathogen effectors are being identified, using in silico and in planta systems, to aid our understanding of the entire pathosystem. The evolution of disease resistance is also being examined, with evolution of both pathogen and host being studied.

Final results

Over the next 18 to 24 months, the focus will be very much on the scientific work plan. Most the project deliverables will relate directly to the scientific discoveries being made by the Action. These relate to specific research questions being posed in order that the Action can contribute to its overall goal: providing the skills and techniques to allow our ESRs contribute to the global goal of feeding an ever-growing population.

Achieving this broad-reaching goal will require very detailed individual steps but by bringing them together, it can be achieved. Not only will this contribute to a greater understanding of plant-pathogen interaction and more sustainable and robust plant disease management strategies, it will also contribute to breeding programmes that will allow for the development of crops that require fewer resources and be less prone to yield loss as a result of biotic and abiotic stresses. This will have a direct beneficial economic effect at local, European and global levels. Among other effects: it will; it will ensure ongoing security of food supply; allow farmers to provide food to an ever increasing population in a sustainable way, that is of benefit to both the farmer and the consumer; it will allow for reduced resource input into an already intensive economic activity, thus reducing the burden on nature.

Website & more info

More info: https://cerealpath.eu.