Potato Review

www.potatoreview.com POTATO REVIEW JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 27 FOCUS: PLANT HEALTH CENTRE E stablished just 18 months ago, Scotland’s Plant Health Centre is focused on bringing together the plant health needs of the di erent rural sectors of agriculture, horticulture, the environment and forestry. Plant Health Centre Director Prof Ian Toth said: “ e idea is to go across all sectors to help understand the consequences of plant pests and pathogens and how to deal with them from the perspectives of areas such as pesticide withdrawals, the e ects of climate change and biodiversity, in which the potato sector plays an important part.” “We are working to communicate better with people and share solutions between the di erent sectors.” One of the current projects is looking for the vectors of zebra chip ( Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum ), which is already a serious pest in New Zealand and the Americas. is pest is vectored by the potato psyllid. “We do not have this pest, but we do have the psyllids close to the high-grade seed potato area in Aberdeenshire,” Ian said. As psyllids live some of their life in conifer forests, there is an important link with forestry, and research is being carried out jointly by Forestry Research and SASA. Another area of concern for the centre is potato cyst nematodes (PCN). “ e Scottish Government has highlighted Psyllids and PCN come under the microscope with Scottish researchers. the importance of this pest because of the loss of clean land for seed potato production,” said Ian. “Some predictions show that in as little as 25-30 years there will be none left. “It appears that in the Netherlands they have shown some success in mitigating the problem, and we are learning about their approach.” Pallida increase ere are two types of PCN, Globodera rostochiensis and G. pallida . Some of the most popular varieties, such as Maris Piper, are resistant to rostochiensis, but at present the only pallida resistant varieties are for processing, and these are not grown in Scotland. As a result, there has been a sharp increase in land infested with pallida. “We are undertaking a survey to discover how people can engage better with PCN and looking at options to reduce the problem; perhaps by targeted growth of pallida-resistant ware varieties to reduce PCN hot spots.” e centre is also working closely with two PCN projects from the Rural Innovation Support Service (RISS), led by the Soil Association together with Innovative Farmers. “In addition, Scottish Government-funded research at the James Hutton Institute has an emphasis on genetic markers for pallida resistance,” Ian said. “We are listening hard to the needs of industry and government and targeting PCN as an important issue for Scotland.” “In addition to the above projects, to help ll gaps in understanding and build evidence in other areas we have commissioned almost 20 projects across a range of issues and sectors, with 54 project partners.” “We have also attended 82 events and built a website and a strong presence on Twitter.” “ e Scottish Government is taking great interest in our work, and we have already been visited by Mairi Gougeon MSP, the Minister for Rural A airs and the Natural Environment.” Plant health centre making a di erence SASA © Crown Copyright Ian Toth

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