HIGH-TECH is being used by the AHDB to deliver the latest cereal disease management guidance for the industry.

This comes via a range of tools, including videos, web pages, publications and regular updates on the status of the UK’s cereal pathogen populations. This in-depth information is all available on its website www.ahdb.org.uk.

Major new resources include the AHDB wheat and barley disease management guide and associated web pages. Together, they provide the in-depth information required to tackle major cereal diseases through integrated pest management (IPM).

Complementing the popular AHDB Encyclopaedia of cereal diseases, the new guidance highlights disease risk factors and provides at-a-glance management solutions.

Target disease web pages dive deeper and explore hosts, life cycles and symptoms. The pages also bring together developments on non-chemical and chemical control, including fungicide performance data and tips on designing fungicide programmes.

Catherine Harries, who manages disease research at AHDB, said: “Our industry embraces digital solutions. In the fast-paced world of crop protection, this is good news. When chemistry is lost, fungicide resistance rears its head or varietal resistance is overcome, we can adapt our guidance accordingly.”

The AHDB Recommended Lists (RL) has exploited the digital arena for many years, with results released online months ahead of the physical publication. To add value to the RL, the 2020/21 data was launched alongside an online variety selection tool.

Later this year, AHDB plans to issue an RL app to ensure the latest varietal information is always at farmers’ fingertips.

Sclerotinia stem rot in oilseed rape is one area covered in the latest guide. With most oilseed rape crops flowering and petals starting to fall, now is the time to visit its sclerotinia infection risk page on https://ahdb.org.uk/sclerotinia.

This can help predict when conditions are conducive for infection of crops by sclerotinia spores, including commentary which is updated every two to three days.

This has a traffic-light system highlighting the weather-based sclerotinia infection alert status broken down by region across Scotland and the UK.

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