© Frédéric Suffert
Wheat black rust PhD project (2024 - 2027)
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Wheat black rust PhD project (2024 - 2027)

Analysis and management of a re-emerging epidemic risk in plant health: survival, dispersion, and recurrence of wheat black rust, at the interface between cultivated and natural compartments

Reports of Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici (Pgt), the causal agent of stem rust, have recently multiplied in France, raising concerns about the resurgence of this disease, long considered one of the most serious for wheat.

  • Duration and years: October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2027
  • PhD student: to be hired
  • Co-Funding: 50% MP SuMCrop INRAE / 50% SPE INRAE

Background and challenges

This PhD project, at the interface between phytopathology and agroecology, aims to analyze and manage this epidemic risk. Two explanatory hypotheses, which are not mutually exclusive, will structure the research work:

  1.  A local origin of the inoculum (established presence of Pgt and green bridge effect, via survival on other host plants), resulting in a possible low-key establishment of stem rust
  2. A distant origin of the inoculum (spores dispersed over long distances by air mass movements from southern Europe), giving the recent epidemic situation an exceptional dimension

The PhD project is linked to the research project FSOV RouilleNoire_2.0 involving wheat breeders, conducted in collaboration with international partners (Denmark, Switzerland) and a French technical institute (ARVALIS).

Objectives 

The strategy proposed for the person recruited for the PhD project relies on a contextualized analysis of the population characteristics of Pgt at the interface between cultivated and natural compartments. She/he will analyze the possibilities of pathogen maintenance in the agroecosystem and investigate the dispersion potential, considering the entire biological cycle at two spatial scales, one broad and the other finer. Firstly, the recruited person will compare the size and structure of pathogen populations present on wheat at the national scale, and on the alternate host (Berberis vulgaris) and certain alternate hosts (wild grasses) that may act as reservoirs in two sites along the Dijon area characterized by the coexistence of all potential host plants. This will be done through in planta phenotyping and genotyping (expertise of the BIOGER unit), based on two years of field epidemiological data collection, which will continue throughout the PhD project. Secondly, the recruited person will implement a modeling approach, specifically a multi-scale analysis of air mass trajectories from areas where Pgt is established, using the existing tool 'Tropolink' (expertise of the BioSP unit).

Involved research units for supervision:

Research unitScientific divisionField of expertise
UR BioSP AvignonSPEPlant disease epidemiology, phytopathology
UR BIOGER PalaiseauSPEPlant disease epidemiology, mathematic modeling, statistics
UR BIOGER PalaiseauSPEPhytopathology, molecular biology

Contact of the coordinator(s): 

Modification date: 10 June 2024 | Publication date: 28 May 2024 | By: Frederic SUFFERT / Samuel SOUBEYRAND