Crop Pest and Disease Survey Review

Tender description

Diseases (incorporating invertebrate pests and pathogens) can cause major losses in crop yield and quality which land owners try to minimise by using pesticides, fungicides and, where available, by growing resistant varieties. Within the UK, Statutory Plant Health Legislation is in place to combat new threats from non-indigenous diseases. However, the greater the severity of endemic diseases the less consistent crop productivity is. The incidence and severity of endemic diseases can fluctuate greatly from year to year; being influenced by many things such as climatic variables and the crop itself. Due to the fact that the relative importance of each individual disease varies in this way, annual assessments of their spatial and temporal distribution help in understanding their epidemiology and therefore the targeting of appropriate control measures in response to risk. The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has funded annual monitoring of endemic disease levels and agronomic practice in both winter wheat and winter oilseed rape (two of the most important UK combinable crops) for approximately forty years. The results have provided reliable data on the background incidence and risk of both endemic invertebrate pests and pathogens to their respective crops [1]. The work also augments levy funded survey work undertaken by the Agriculture, Horticulture and Development Board (AHDB), which is tailored to provide near real-time information of effective control strategies. The findings of the survey have also supported the development and functioning of the online data source, CropMonitor [2].