Optimised Detection and Control of Potato Blight: Sensing Pathogens to Inform Smart Spray Decisions

The maintenance of global food security, mediated by sustainable intensification of agriculture, is a recognised global issue and the effective management of plant disease is critical to productive cropping of agricultural land. Potato is the third most important food crop globally, with late blight control being a major challenge estimated to cost £3.5billion in losses per annum. In the UK, disease control alone costs £55M per annum on average to the industry. This project seeks to demonstrate a new prototype device that will sample airborne spores of P. infestans (the cause of late blight) and Alternaria species (the cause of early blight) in the field, automatically process the sample, quantify DNA by fluorescence and relay results by mobile phone text message. The aim is to improve current weather-based disease risk models and predictions for late blight, resulting in enhanced decision making ability for growers with respect to fungicide choice and application and therefore more efficient resource use.