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Mildew Mania in 2014
Are you interested in this? The University sends us barley seeds which we plant and watch for signs of mildew. Then we send them samples for testing. Last time I had a class involved, our plants stayed irritatingly healthy over the whole season!
This is real scientific research that will have a real impact on Western Australia!

Maybe someone might want to choose this for their Genius Hour work next term.

Get your own Poll!


• Here is some information about why they want help to gather samples around the state.
“This is a citizen-science research project aimed at protecting West Australia’s barley crops from the damaging effect of powdery mildew disease.
In WA, this disease causes the most economic impact on barley. Researchers at Curtin University‘s Department of Environment and Agriculture aim to give plant breeders and growers the tools they require to control this disease and therefore reduce the state’s losses.
Barley mildew is currently controlled in two ways, through genetics and through fungicides. But these are both presently compromised.
Genetic resistance to the disease is no longer effective, as the pathogen population can rapidly evolve to overcome the resistance genes that are present in current cultivars. To solve this problem this researchers need to explore which “races’’ of the pathogen are present in different parts of WA.
The second control is fungicide. Curtin researchers have observed that much of the population is becoming resistant to the most commonly used fungicides. To combat this we need to identify which WA mildew populations are fungicide resistant and which are not. “

 

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