With concerns about the proliferation of strains resistant to the most widely used fungicides, the country’s potato industry has welcomed the news that funding has been secured to continue the ‘Fight Against Blight’ campaign for a further season.

The £130,000 of funding – sourced from a consortium of key industry partners – will allow the service which has been provided by the James Hutton Institute since 2006 to maintain its ongoing monitoring and testing work for the 2024 season.

Previously funded through AHDB Potatoes, fears were expressed that the crucial intelligence offered on blight levels and genotypes would be lost to growers just as new strains of Phytophthora infestans were threatening to undermine a considerable chunk of the pesticide armoury.

The Scottish Farmer: Potato blight tuber symptomsPotato blight tuber symptoms (Image: web)

And while the Scottish Government had initially picked up the tab in recognition of the importance of the work, it was made clear that this was being undertaken as a short-term emergency measure only. “With concerns about resistance to CAA and OSBPI fungicides in new genotypes reported on the continent last year, the early detection of any new arrivals to GB crops is going to be crucial to building effective IPM programmes for 2024 potato crops,” said Dr David Cooke who, along with Dr Alison Lees leads the work on blight at the Hutton which involves sampling of late blight outbreaks, the characterisation of pathogen populations, as well as fungicide sensitivity testing on active ingredients prioritised by the industry.

The forecasting system works by monitoring blight populations collected from samples via a nationwide network of agronomists, growers, and industry representatives who work as blight scouts, annually submitting up to 1500 field samples from suspected late blight outbreaks throughout Britain.

So far this year late blight has already been reported in Jersey and in Kent – and the wet winter conditions and unharvested crops have created additional sources and avenues for the disease.

Furthermore, the discovery of the feared EU43 genotype which is resistant to the most commonly used fungicide groups – including mandipropamid, which is the key ingredient in products such as Revus – in Ireland in 2023 has also added concerns about potential inoculum sources spreading from the west into early GB crops:

“Crucially, it is the testing of these outbreaks which allows for the rapid in-season identification of genotypes,” said Dr Cooke.

“This, in combination with an end of season report, ensures the potato industry is kept well-informed on emerging threats, as well as best-practice for late blight management.”

Dr Jonathan Snape, director of James Hutton Limited, added that without the essential contributions from the cross-sector consortium of industry bodies it would simply not be possible to continue the nationwide monitoring of emerging genotypes at a time when it is needed most.

“As such, we thank the following organisations for their sponsorship and continued support of Fight Against Blight; Certis Belchim, UPL Ltd, BASF, Bayer, Corteva, Syngenta, Albert Bartlett, Agrovista, Frontier, Hutchinsons, GB Potatoes, McCain, Scottish Agronomy, The Seed Potato Organisation, Agrico, Branston, SAC Consulting and Agrii.”