RustWatch: A European early-warning system for wheat rust diseases

Project Information

RUSTWATCH

Grant agreement ID: 773311

DOI

10.3030/773311

Project closed

EC signature date 27 April 2018

Start date 1 May 2018

End date 30 September 2022

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy

Total cost

€ 4 999 998,75

EU contribution

€ 4 999 998,75

Coordinated by

AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - RUSTWATCH (RustWatch: A European early-warning system for wheat rust diseases)

Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

RustWatch is a stakeholder driven H2020 initiative developing a European early-warning system for rust diseases, which is a major challenge for plant health in Europe. Plant health is a key component for achieving the goals of the EU ‘farm-to-fork’ strategy of reducing 50% of pesticide use and a goal of 25 % of total farmland used for organic farming by 2030. The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 773311), engaging 12 universities/research institutes, 5 agricultural advisory services, and 7 SMEs/industries in Europe. RustWatch is based on intensified collaboration between beneficiaries within plant pathology, plant breeding, agronomy, agro-chemistry, molecular genetics and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
A core activity is to provide a better understanding of pathogen biology by faster and more efficient diagnostic methods to detect new rust races and genotypes, which enables us to investigate pathogen population changes, including potential exotic incursions of rust strains into Europe, and to study the role of pathogen aggressiveness, temperature adaptation, and Berberis spp. as sexual host as driver of evolution. This has been possible by strengthening the collaboration among European rust diagnostic laboratories, e.g. new procedures for alignment of experimental procedures and interpretation of results, and exchange and compilation of genotypic and phenotypic data using the facilities provided by the WheatRustToolbox.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

RustWatch has allowed us to perform rust surveys in 14 European countries without national rust diagnostic labs, and rust sampling was intensified and diversified by utilizing existing stakeholder networks within plant breeding, variety testing (VCU) and agricultural advisory services. For instance, new races of yellow rust, which caused shifts in rust susceptibility for currently grown wheat varieties, were first detected in samples collected by stakeholder (VCU) partners. Genotypic and phenotypic data are stored according to the FAIR principles on a web-based database platform, termed the Wheat Rust Toolbox, and visualized on publically accessible web-sites, e.g. Wheatrust.org but country representatives and data providers have access to a number of more detailed analytic tools for their “own” data. Because the Wheat Rust Toolbox serves the global wheat and rust community, we are able to analyze rust populations in Europe in a global context. RustWatch has developed a new data management systems to accommodate rust surveillance data from Europe, as well as three mobile Apps, including a crowdsource App, which are targeted towards different areas of wheat rust early warning and user groups.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The activities and results have already had significant impact for several stakeholder groups, i.e. translating information about rust pathogen changes and regional differences in Europe into the impact on host susceptibility of a huge number of breeding lines and cultivated wheat varieties. This is essential for optimizing the ongoing plant breeding for disease resistance in the plant breeding industry and for providing valuable prevention and control recommendations by regional and national agricultural advisory services for the benefit of end-user farmers. The integration with the pre-existing Value-for-Cultivation-and-Use (VCU) network allowed us to detect new pathogen races, and the VCU testing got inew knowledge about rust populations improving the interpretation of VCU results.
The case study approach has allowed us to investigate the threats of invasive rust races at the regional scale and suggest IPM-based prevention and control options adjusted to the relevant agronomical practices and environmental conditions in the considered region. For instance, after the extensive 2019-yellow rust epidemics in Denmark (one of the case study regions) farmers responded by dramatic changes in varietal distribution. Due to the emergence of a new yellow rust race, more than 60% of the wheat area was deployed by highly susceptible varieties in 2019. This figure has dropped below 10% in the current growing season, where yellow rust ‘resistant’ varieties are deployed on 80% of the winter wheat area. Inspired by RustWatch results and other project activities, the use of variety mixtures in winter wheat has expanded rapidly in several countries, e.g. France and Denmark in particular, where 39% of the winter wheat area is covered by high yielding variety mixtures in the growing season 2022/23.
The project has proven that efficient and long-term prevention and control of rust diseases in wheat is dependent of a system approach, which in addition to pathogen diagnostic laboratories involves key stakeholders within plant breeding, variety testing (VCU), and rapid and efficient dissemination of results including agricultural advisory services working with individual plant growers. Short-term prospects for efficient genetic control of yellow rust are promising, whereas additional efforts are required to develop new and high yielding varieties with durable resistance to leaf (brown) rust and to stem (black) rust in particular. A European infrastructure beyond research for complementation of national efforts for pathogen monitoring and resistance phenotyping allowing interpretation of pathogen dispersal, evolution and potential impact on yield and quality at the continental scale is highly recommended. The early-warning system developed is generic and could be applicable for additional crops and windborne pathogens, which to a large extent can be controlled by host resistance. A set of general recommendations for plant health in relation to non-regulated and wind dispersed crop pathogens has been developed.

RustWatch -open field day