Analysis: Lateral flow tests, inspired by Covid-19 tests, can give growers vital information to deal with blight during Ireland's summers
Given the mild, damp summers that Ireland can often have, potato growers have their work cut out for them to prevent Phytophthora infestans, the pathogen that causes late blight, from destroying their crop. In Ireland, growers, agronomists and companies are working together to advise on a chemical spraying regimen to manage late blight through a combination of both prevention and treatment strategies.
One of the challenges is the emergence of resistant strains of late blight that will dictate how effective a particular chemical treatment will be. Researchers are looking to solve this challenge by putting 'Covid 19 type' tests in the hands of growers. These game-changing lateral flow tests can tell growers which strain of late blight they are potentially dealing with just before they decide to spray, giving them vital information to help them to chose the most effective chemical at their disposal.
Traditionally, these lateral flow tests use an antibody, which can be a laborious, expensive and time consuming process. Besides being designed to be much faster, these DNA-based tests have the added advantage of being much more specific and can distinguish between resistant strains of late blight.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Countrywide, how Brexit has played a part in the rise of new strains of potato blight
While growers already use weather data and moisture conditions to predict if blight is likely to take off, the information they are missing is whether the blight is resistant to a given chemical treatment that they might spray with. To fill this gap in information, the grower can take a leaf from one of the plants and, through a series of simple steps, add it to a lateral flow strip designed to detect resistant strains of blight.
The test can be tweaked to match the latest and emerging resistant strains that are in circulation in each growing season, and this testing approach can also be used to test DNA captured in devices that trap bioaerosol particles, including blight spores. The turn-around time from sample to result takes less than an hour.
Blight is an expensive problem for potato and tomato growers in Ireland and cross Europe, costing in the region of €90 million annually. EU-wide efforts like Euroblight are being coordinated to track, monitor and - most importantly for testing - collect DNA and sequence resistant blight strains.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Countrywide, Dr Klara Finkele from Met Éireann on their blight alarm system
The James Hutton Institute in the UK is the leading centre in providing the sequence information on resistant strains to Irish and European growers. Once the DNA sequence is known, new lateral flow DNA test can be designed and optimised in a matter of weeks.
Fortunately for Ireland, the resistant blight strains that arise in the rest of Europe often don’t appear in Irish fields for a couple of years - so in the future, this international cooperation means that the DNA sequence of resistant strains will often be known before they appear here. This allows time to develop the lateral flow field tests, and gives Ireland the upper hand in the current and future battle against chemical resistant blight.
The AGSENSE project is funded by Research Ireland's Future Food Systems Challenge
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ.
