Plant Diseases

Integrated Pest Management highlights the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro-ecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms. IPM is one of the tools for low-pesticide-input pest management, and IPM must now be implemented by all professional agchem users.

Puccinia triticina is specific to wheat. Other pathotypes can affect barley, rye and triticale. 

Derived from natural materials such as animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals. Designed to affect only one target pest and often decompose quickly. 

The major commodity crops in the UK are wheat, barley, oilseed rape, field beans, sugar beet and potatoes, but around half of agricultural land grows grass.   

Commonly known as Septoria or Septoria leaf blotch, this is the most damaging foliar disease in the UK for Winter Wheat. With a carefully constructed fungicide programme and use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), disease pressure can be managed and losses greatly reduced.  

Cereal diseases affecting wheat, barley, oats, rye, triticale and maize can be caused by a variety of factors, including fungal, bacterial or viral infections, pests and insects, and environmental stress.

Field beans (vicia faba) are a widely grown break crop across the UK on around 170,000 ha. 

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Oilseed rape diseases can be caused by a variety of factors, including fungal, bacterial or viral infections, pests and insects, and environmental stress.

Fungicides are a type of agrochemical used specifically to kill fungal pathogens or inhibit the growth of fungi and the spores that they produce. They full under the umbrella of plant protection products (PPPs), also referred to as pesticides, along with other agrochemicals such as herbicides and insecticides that target weeds and insect pests respectively.  Prior to the development of fungicides, there are many historic cases of pathogenic fungi devastating crop yields - one of the most famous being the Irish Potato famine of 1845-52. This was caused by the potato late blight fungal pathogen Phytophthora infestans which today still causes massive losses to agriculture globally, although management by fungicides is now an important component of control.  A wide variety of fungicides exist with various modes of action (MOAs) to effectively control many fungal diseases including mildews, rusts, blights and leaf spots. A threat to modern agriculture is the development and spread of resistance to such fungicides amongst fungal populations.

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Agrochemicals are chemical products used for agricultural purposes. Although agrochemicals have high input costs, they are widely used in the farming industry for their beneficial effects on crop yields and quality and associated reduced labour costs. Together with advances in agricultural machinery and infrastructure, the use of agrochemicals played a large role in the Green Revolution. This was a period in the 21st century in which the spread of various agricultural technologies led to greatly increased yields and production globally. However, a number of concerns around agrochemicals exist including negative effects on human health and the environment and the development of pest populations that are becoming resistant to them. A major challenge of modern agriculture is to try and reduce reliance on agrochemicals whilst continuing to increase yields and feed a growing global population.

Phoma leaf spot and stem canker is one of the most damaging diseases in oilseed rape, caused by two closely related fungal pathogens: Leptosphaeria maculans (Plenodomus lingam) and L. biglobosa (P. biglobosus).