By Joana Vicente and Andrew Aspin Culture collections are repositories of preserved and authenticated microbes for use in research. Some of our Bacterial Plant Disease projects are generating large collections of isolates and/or are using isolates from in-house or public …
By Joana Vicente and Andrew Aspin As we are approaching the final stages of most of our BPD projects, we are turning our attention to impact, publications, stakeholders’ engagement, and dissemination. Other important aspects of these final stages also involve …
How BPD projects are using and contributing to culture collections Read More »
In this blog Joana Vicente reports from the 12th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP2023) in Lyon, France. From 19 to 25 August 2023 more than 2400 participants from 88 countries (including 550 PhD students) gathered in Lyon, France, for …
Harry Wright from the Disease Suppressive Microbes team has scooped the top prize in the University of Sheffield’s Open Research Prize 2023. The Open Research Prize was introduced in order to recognise and celebrate the excellent work University of Sheffield …
Many of our projects spend the summer running and collecting data from field trials. Here are some behind the scenes photos of our BAC-STOP team in action. They are collecting information about acute oak decline and the impact of drought …
On 3 June 2023 our Xanthomonas Threats project hosted a stall at the Kenilworth Show. Here Shannon Greer and Joana Vincente report on their day. The Kenilworth Show is an annual agricultural show that has been running nearly uninterrupted for …
On Wednesday 10 May 2023 as part of Plant Health Week 2023 we hosted a webinar looking at four different bacterial species and how they affect our crops and food supplies. Replays of the presentations are available now on our …
Can you help? PhD student Helene Kile is researching increasing reports of Tilia (lime) trees with bleeding cankers. If you know of any Tilia trees in the UK showing these symptoms Helene would love to hear from you. Read on …
This spring we were lucky enough to get additional funding from UKRI to enable some of our researchers to go on placements to different work environments to learn skills and build relationships. We’ll be sharing report from all of the …
Transformation in Barcelona: Sara’s placement report Read More »
For Plant Health Week 2023 we will be discussing various bacterial diseases and how they threaten our food supply. Bacterial diseases affect many food plants reducing yields and contributing to shortages. Emerging diseases not yet present in the UK also …
The impact of bacterial diseases on crops and food supply Read More »
Following on from the popularity of their Brennaria tree diseases factsheets, the BAC-STOP project have created a sister resource focusing on diseases caused by Lonsdalea bacterial species. It covers the oak tree diseases drippy blight, drippy nut and bark canker, …
This month (January 2023) a new action plan to protect plants from pests and diseases was published by Defra, in partnership with the Forestry Commission and the Scottish and Welsh Governments. The Plant Biosecurity Strategy for Great Britain sets out …
Find out about the science behind our 2023 bookmark images
Huge congratulations to BAC-STOP researcher Gareth Thomas who scooped Best Poster at the recent International Plant Health Conference. Gareth’s poster entitled ‘Using the odour of bacteria to tackle acute oak decline’ beat off competition from across the globe to be …
Researchers on our BAC-STOP project have recently published a long-overdue update to the Disease Decline Spiral Model. It draws from their research on tree decline diseases like Acute Oak Decline (AOD) which don’t have one single cause. Rather they are …
In the second of our Fighting Bac workshops our researchers will share new approaches for identifying and modelling disease outbreaks. The workshop will focus particularly on the next steps for translating these findings into real world innovations and how stakeholders …
Joanna Vicente reports from the 14th International Conference on Plant Pathogenic Bacteria (ICPPB) which took place 3-8 July in Assisi, Italy. Surrounded by sunflower fields and olive trees, 196 delegates gathered in the idyllic setting of the Hotel Valle di …
ICPPB 2022 – Discussing diseases and dancing in the rain Read More »
Joana Vicente reports from the 4th International Erwinia Workshop (4th IEW) which took place 2-3 July 2022 in Assisi, Italy. Delegates took planes, trains and automobiles to convene at the Hotel Valle di Assisi to discuss various plant diseases that …
By Bryden Fields, Research Associate on the Ralstonia Phage project Bacteriophages (phages) are viruses that infect and kill bacteria. Phages can have very specific host ranges and we can harness this specificity to kill certain bacterial strains whilst leaving other …
Plant seeks phage: Searching for viruses that can protect plants from bacterial disease Read More »
Woodlands cover around 13% of the total land area of the UK. Although this figure is much lower than the European average of 37%, the UK’s trees are nonetheless highly valued for timber production, biodiversity, water and air quality improvement. …
Why bacterial tree diseases matter and what you can do to help Read More »