Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
et al.
, 2001), while there have been recent reports of resistance to an important
preventative, quinoxyfen (Walker
et al.
, 2004). Has this spelt disaster for cereal
farming in Northern Europe? No, because in the meantime, breeding for resistance
to mildew has been effective in both barley and wheat. Almost all varieties of wheat
released in the UK in the last 20 years and many varieties of winter barley have had
high partial resistance to mildew, while many spring barley varieties have had the
mlo
resistance, which has been durably effective.
3.7 DISSEMINATION OF SURVEY RESULTS
Until recently, the only practical option for disseminating the results of pathogen
surveys was in printed form, which limited the audience for the research. Research
papers reporting the results of surveys remain important, as they provide the
technical and scientific information required by the community of researchers
interested in a disease. The internet, however, is beginning to make a radical difference
to the dissemination of information about surveys to farmers and agricultural advisors,
just as it has in so many other walks of life.
3.7.1 Presentation of survey results
In the UK and several other countries, the only significant route for the
dissemination of the results of pathogen surveys used to be technical bulletins,
available as topics known as Annual Reports of the UKCPVS. These were primarily
aimed at specialists, including plant breeders and agricultural advisors, who could
then transmit messages of practical importance to farmers. This still continues,
although dissemination is now more often via the internet. The UKCPVS is
supported by the Home-Grown Cereals Authority, which in turn raises funds from
a levy on the sales of cereals. The main route for publication of the technical
bulletins of the UKCPVS is now
via
the website of the HGCA (http://www.
hgca.com/content.output/56/56/Crop-Research/Crop-Research/UK-Cereal-Pathogen
For those interested in survey information at the technical
Virulence -Survey. mspx).
level, this has the very great advantage of ready access to summaries of the data.
3.7.2 Incorporation of survey results with advice to farmers
The internet also offers much more immediate opportunities to incorporate the results
of surveys with advice to farmers on the choice of crop varieties and fungicides. To
date, this has been done most extensively in Denmark, where relevant results of
surveys of barley powdery mildew and wheat yellow rust are incorporated into the
variety recommendation system available on the internet (http://www.sortinfo.dk).
This includes, for example, information on the responses of leading wheat varieties to
new races of yellow rust, tested in protected conditions by the Danish Institute of
Agricultural Science, and the presence of the durable
mlo
resistance to mildew in
varieties of spring barley.
