A joint UK-China research programme has discovered several new strains of strawberry disease Verticillium wilt, helping plant breeders to develop new resistant varieties.
Verticillium wilt, a soil-borne disease, has been a caused crop losses for strawberry growers worldwide, as well as infecting at least another 200 crops. Among other things, it has driven many growers to switch to substrate production bags rather than growing in soil.
Together with Northwest A&F University in Xianyang, China, Kent-based research institute NIAB EMR has discovered strains of the disease, which act in very different ways.
The results are already being used by plant breeders in the development of a new generation of wilt resistant varieties.
Plant pathologist Rong Fan is a visiting researcher at NIAB EMR from China’s Northwest A&F University. He has identified two fungal strains from two distinct vegetative compatibility groups, meaning there is very limited genetic exchange between them.
Each strain of the fungus has a different mechanism by which it infects the host plant, with one of the strains producing more symptoms than the other.
Dr Richard Harrison, head of genetics, genomics and breeding at NIAB EMR in Kent, said: “Our strawberry breeding programme produces globally important new varieties. Key to the successful export of these varieties, which bring intellectual property (IP) revenues back to the UK, is the plant’s ability to resist economically important diseases such as Verticillium wilt.
“Using this exciting new knowledge, published in the journal PLOS ONE, we can choose the right parents, within our breeding programmes, to generate the next generation of wilt-resistant varieties for a worldwide market.”
Fan added: “Verticillium wilt is known to be a very variable disease. With this new knowledge researchers have been able to go back over their historic pathogen collections and determine that the two ‘groups’ have always been present.
“The next step will be to determine if the two strains can be identified separately in the field.”
The research is being carried out as part of the Building High Level University Program of the China Scholarship Council.
The collaboration builds on BBSRC-funded research looking at the genetic basis of Verticillium wilt within the IDRIS (Improving Disease Resistance in Strawberry) initiative.
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