The Global Rust Reference Center in Denmark: Understanding wheat rust pathogens on a global scale
Date
20 Mar 2018, Tuesday
Time
| Location | Local Time | Time Zone |
| Canberra (Australia – Australian Capital Territory) | 12:30:00 pm | AEDT |
| Melbourne (Australia – Victoria) | 12:30:00 pm | AEDT |
| Brisbane (Australia – Queensland) | 11:30:00 am | AEST |
| Perth (Australia – Western Australia) | 9:30:00 am | AWST |
| Adelaide (Australia – South Australia) | 12:00:00 noon | ACDT |
Venues
CSIRO: Black Mountain – Discovery Theatre; Adelaide Waite – B101-FG-SmallWICWest; Brisbane QBP – Level 3 South telepresence room (3.323); Armidale – B55-FG-R00-Small; Perth Floreat – B1b Boardroom; Werribee (Melbourne) – Peacock Room; Irymple – (see Natalie Strickland)
Speaker
Dr Chris Sørensen, Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Synopsis
The stripe rust and stem rust diseases caused by fungal pathogens are two of the major concerns for wheat production on a global scale. The recent global economic losses has been estimated to US$979 million per year due to stripe rust alone. The main characters that makes the causing pathogens so threatening is their capacity for windborne short and long-distance spread, and their ability to adapt to their host and environment. In order to prevent severe long-term damage it is therefore crucial to monitor their spread and understand changes in pathogen populations that affects the susceptibility of regionally grown wheat varieties. Based on a strong international collaboration the Global Rust Reference Center (GRRC) was therefore established in 2008 at Aarhus University in Denmark. Professor Mogens Hovmøller spawned the idea and led the centers establishment on request from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA). Initially with focus on stripe rust, but in 2011 extended to stem rust with support from the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative. Apart from Europe, the center mainly receives samples from Africa and Central and West Asia through national surveillance activities in those areas guided and coordinated by CIMMYT and ICARDA. The centers activities thus serves as a collective reference for pathogen development and spread in those areas. The received samples are virulence phenotyped and genotyped, and the results distributed to international research communities and partners through web-based presentation tool, reports and scientific journals. The center hold a large collection of diverse rust isolates secured for future research and breeding activities. The GRRC collection includes the so-called “Stubbs collection”; a collection founded by the late Ron Stubbs and which contains samples of stripe rust from all around the world dating back to the 1950s. In addition, GRRC trains students and visiting scientists in rust pathology, and leads and participate in national and international research project on rust. In this seminar, I will introduce the facilities and services at GRRC and present some of the most important research results from our group in recent years. For more information, please visit our website: www.wheatrust.org
Bio
Dr Chris Sørensen is a scientist at the Global Rust Reference Center. He obtained his PhD from Aarhus University in 2013 with a focus on the biology of Puccinia striiformis, the fungal pathogen that causes the stripe rust disease on wheat. For the past four years, he has been a postdoctoral fellow at Aarhus University with a continued focus on the epidemiology, genetics, and infection biology of rust and mildew pathogens. In his research, he has collaborated with national breeding companies, the Danish agricultural advisory service and a number of fantastic scientists from all over the world. Chis is currently in Australia visiting with Mick Ayliffe’s group and learning methods for phenotyping non-host resistance to rust pathogens.
This is a public seminar.
Open-access to The CSIRO Discovery Theatre @ Black Mountain