Potato Late Blight

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Potato Late Blight

• A Neighbours Story
• Dolf de Boer

Vegetable Industry Conference 2009
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Epidemics?

• Swine Flu?
• Potato Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans)
• One of the most destructive plant diseases in the
  world
• Crop failure, famine, major economic losses
• Resurgent disease
• Fungicides
• Developing World

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Irish Potato Famine

• Successive crop failures due to late blight
  epidemics
• Potatoes sole source of food for Irish peasants
• Population reduced from 8 M to 5 M
• Up to 1.5 M people starved to death
• Millions emigrated around the world, mostly to
  Nth America
• Population of Ireland has never recovered
• Far reaching effects on politics, economics,
  religion, art and culture worldwide

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Potato Late Blight
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The New Late Blight, 1980s -

• Migration of new strains from Mexico 1970s
• A1 A2 mating strains sex genetics
• Oospores long term survival in soil
• Highly aggressive pathogen
• Shorter life cycle less than 4 days
• Resistance busting
• Highly adaptable wider temperature regimes,
  reduced periods of moisture
• Rapidly changing populations
• Spread around the world

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Potato Late Blight control in Europe

• Potato Review July/August 2007

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South East Asia
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Potato Late Blight Epidemic 2003
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Highlands Tropics
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Strains of Pi in PNG
A1 mating type Clonal population Genetic profile
-strain from the new European populations of the
1990s Origin - Europe via Java via Irian Jaya?
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Evaluating Fungicides
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Resistant varieties
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Resistant Varieties
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Java, Indonesia
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Implications for Australia

• Impact of new strains in potatoes in Australia?
• Late blight can become a more serious problem
• Prepared?
• Risk Analysis
• Incursion Management Plan
• Rapid diagnostics for detection
• Up-to-date management options

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