A new research project is bringing together barley growers from across the south of the Western Australian grainbelt to help create regionally relevant solutions for managing fungicide resistance. 

Co-ordinated by the Centre for Crop and Disease Management (CCDM) – a national centre co-supported by Curtin University and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) – the Barley Disease Cohort Project aims to directly engage at least 100 growers in fungicide resistance research, with a particular focus on spot-form and net-form net blotch of barley, two diseases recently identified as fungicide resistant in these southern regions.

The pilot project, led by CCDM’s internationally renowned cereal disease researcher Dr Lorenzo Covarelli, along with input from CCDM’s fungicide resistance expert Dr Fran Lopez-Ruiz and CCDM Director Professor Mark Gibberd, will allow growers and researchers to share experiences and knowledge, finding out exactly where resistance is occurring and carrying out field trials to develop solutions to managing the growing problem. 

“Fungicide resistance is a core research area at the CCDM, but before now we have mostly focused on a nation-wide approach, involving the molecular detection of resistance cases, the trialling of new active ingredients, as well as many field trials and extension activities,” Dr Covarelli says.  

“This project is a little different, as it will connect CCDM researchers directly with a group of growers in a particular region in a cycle of co-innovation. 

“We’re anticipating that data collected from year one will inform grower decisions in the project’s second year, and data from year two will inform decisions in its third, and so on.” 

Dr Covarelli says the project not only involves the benchmarking of fungicide resistance of barley net blotches in the cohort’s region, but also analysis of the decision-making behind managing fungicide resistance, hoping to see positive changes on how decisions are made from new data available. 

The project focuses on net blotch of barley – both spot-form and net-form – as these diseases have recently been established as evolving fungicide resistance to several Group 3 DMI fungicides in both the Esperance and Albany Port Zones.

Barley growers can register their interest in being part of the project at CCDM.