Scientists from the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) and Dundee University have been jointly awarded £1.25M from the EU to investigate the natural resistance of several important crop plants to potentially devastating plant diseases. 

The team, led by Drs. Robbie Waugh, Glenn Bryan, Paul Birch, David Marshall (SCRI) and Andy Flavell (Dundee), will use state of the art molecular technologies to identify the specific variants of genes that contribute towards resistance to diseases such as late blight on potatoes and scald on barley that annually cause hundreds of millions of pounds of damage worldwide.  They then aim to translate their discoveries into new breeding lines of potato, wheat and barley by developing both germplasm and diagnostic tools that can be used by plant breeders to improve resistance in the commercial crops. 

At the moment, many common crop varieties require the application of large amounts of pesticides and fungicides throughout the growing season to protect the crop from disease.  While this practice has been immensely successful in improving crop yield and quality, serious concerns have been raised about the impact it has on both the environment and the consumer. 

The most attractive and sustainable solution to this problem is to develop varieties containing natural resistance as they can then protect themselves against attack.  This is particularly important in the organic sector where the application of many agrochemicals is prohibited. 

By identifying the genes and understanding the mechanisms involved in the infection process and which result in a plant being either resistant or susceptible, the research will identify new sources of natural disease resistance and develop diagnostics that will help plant breeders mobilise this resistance into new varieties for the farmer.  

SCRI increases knowledge in plant and environmental sciences. The research is focussed on plants to improve the understanding of processes that regulate their growth and response to pests, pathogens and the environment. This includes understanding genetics to breed crops with improved quality and nutritional value as fast as possible. By understanding the plant’s response to pests and diseases and how they react to the soil, air and water around them, environmentally friendly methods of protecting crops from the ravages of pests, diseases and weeds can be designed.

SCRI is grant-aided by the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD) and has charitable status. It is one of five Scottish Agricultural and Biological Research Institutes (SABRIs) which, together with those of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, form the agricultural and food research service of the UK