5 Conclusion and Recommendations
In conclusion
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Wheat is of huge and growing societal and economic importance across the EU, both in terms of food and commodities.
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The most notable pathogen of wheat currently is the fungus Z. tritici, which causes Septoria tritici Blotch
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Our current understanding of Z. tritici is suggestive of a pathogen whose importance must not be underestimated. This fungus shows a degree of evolutionary “plasticity” which may allow it to keep pace with innovations in disease control with relative ease.
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A full understanding of the fungus per se and of its fine-scale interaction with wheat remains elusive. A precise and detailed catalogue of events leading to full infection would better inform models aimed at predicting disease outcome and better inform the timing of fungicide spraying.
Recommendations
We need to raise awareness of growers, politicians and the general public as to the threat to local and global food security by pathogens such as Z. tritici.
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We need to garner more research funding and to train more plant pathologists to face such challenges.
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We need more interdisciplinary and international research, particularly in the fields of predictive and climate change modelling. Here, models are needed to (i) predict the movement of crops and pathogens in the face of climate change and (ii) inform the timing of crop spraying with antifungals. Intelligent use of fungicide mixtures and the timing of their application at low dose must be informed by lab.-based and field trials and by multi-parameter epidemiological modelling.
We need to search for new sources of durable disease resistance to be introduced by introgression or GM into wheat and which do not reduce crop yields.
We need to evaluate new low dose, environmentally benign, broad spectrum multi-target site antifungals. In addition, the regulatory framework for agrochemicals needs to assess the benefits of fungicides as well as their costs in order to achieve sustainable disease control.
We need to reduce our reliance on single target site antifungals as resistance has emerged to these.
Acknowledgments
SG acknowledges funding from the BBSRC. The authors thank Sreedhar Kilaru for provision of e-GFP stain (Fig. 1), James Brown (JIC) and Bart Fraaije (Rothamsted Research) who commented on the Zymoseptoria tritici calculations and Gero Steinberg (Exeter) for his critical appraisal of the prose.