Blackleg of Potato

Sparks, Adam and Megan Kennelly, Blackleg of Potato, Manhattan, Kansas, Kansas State University, August 2008

Common Scab of Potato

Sparks, Adam, Common Scab of Potato, Manhattan, Kansas, Kansas State University, May 2008

Bacterial ring rot of potato

Adam Sparks and Megan Kennelly, Bacterial Ring Rot of Potato, Kansas State University, August 2008

Timing of Triazole-Based Spray Schedules for Managing Mungbean Powdery Mildew in Australia: a Meta-Analysis

Powdery mildew (PM), caused by two fungal species, Podosphaera xanthii and Erysiphe vignae, is a yield limiting foliar disease commonly found in mungbean (Vigna radiata) cropping areas of eastern region of Australia. Effective control of the disease relies largely on fungicide applications, mainly of the triazole group. Uncertainty in the current fungicide spray schedule recommendations, which advise commencing with a spray at the first signs of PM, prompted this study to evaluate PM severity and crop yield data obtained from fungicide trials which also tested spray schedules starting before (early) or after (late) first signs, applied singly or combined with a follow-up spray. A meta-analytic approach was employed to obtain mean differences of the PM severity and crop yield between plots sprayed with specific triazole-based spray schedules and nontreated plots. From 26 trials, 14 and 15 met the criteria for inclusion in the respective PM severity and yield analyses. The schedule with the first spray starting at first sign, with a follow-up spray 14 days later, resulted in significantly lower disease severity compared to all other schedules. However, the yield protected was only numerically higher and not statistically different compared to: single-spray at first sign, single-spray late or two-spray starting late. PM severity and yield in the early sprayed plots did not differ from the nontreated plots. These findings support the current recommendations and provide additional evidence that yields are still protected when delaying the first spray up to a week after disease onset. They also suggest that additional sprays may not always be necessary, thus reducing direct fungicide costs, indirect costs due to fungicide insensitivity and potential adverse effects to the environment

Which method is best for the induction of labour?: A systematic review, network meta-analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis

Background: More than 150,000 pregnant women in England and Wales have their labour induced each year. Multiple pharmacological, mechanical and complementary methods are available to induce labour. Objective: To assess the relative effectiveness, safety and cost-effectiveness of labour induction methods and, data permitting, effects in different clinical subgroups. Methods: We carried out a systematic review using Cochrane methods. The Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group’s Trials Register was searched (March 2014). This contains over 22,000 reports of controlled trials (published from 1923 onwards) retrieved from weekly searches of OVID MEDLINE (1966 to current); Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library); EMBASE (1982 to current); Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (1984 to current); ClinicalTrials.gov; the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Portal; and hand-searching of relevant conference proceedings and journals. We included randomised controlled trials examining interventions to induce labour compared with placebo, no treatment or other interventions in women eligible for third-trimester induction. We included outcomes relating to efficacy, safety and acceptability to women. In addition, for the economic analysis we searched the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, and Economic Evaluations Databases, NHS Economic Evaluation Database and the Health Technology Assessment database. We carried out a network meta-analysis (NMA) using all of the available evidence, both direct and indirect, to produce estimates of the relative effects of each treatment compared with others in a network. We developed a de novo decision tree model to estimate the cost-effectiveness of various methods. The costs included were the intervention and other hospital costs incurred (price year 2012–13). We reviewed the literature to identify preference-based utilities for the health-related outcomes in the model. We calculated incremental cost-effectiveness ratios, expected costs, utilities and net benefit. We represent uncertainty in the optimal intervention using cost-effectiveness acceptability curves. Results: We identified 1190 studies; 611 were eligible for inclusion. The interventions most likely to achieve vaginal delivery (VD) within 24 hours were intravenous oxytocin with amniotomy [posterior rank 2; 95% credible intervals (CrIs) 1 to 9] and higher-dose (≥ 50 μg) vaginal misoprostol (rank 3; 95% CrI 1 to 6). Compared with placebo, several treatments reduced the odds of caesarean section, but we observed considerable uncertainty in treatment rankings. For uterine hyperstimulation, double-balloon catheter had the highest probability of being among the best three treatments, whereas vaginal misoprostol (≥ 50 μg) was most likely to increase the odds of excessive uterine activity. For other safety outcomes there were insufficient data or there was too much uncertainty to identify which treatments performed ‘best’. Few studies collected information on women’s views. Owing to incomplete reporting of the VD within 24 hours outcome, the cost-effectiveness analysis could compare only 20 interventions. The analysis suggested that most interventions have similar utility and differ mainly in cost. With a caveat of considerable uncertainty, titrated (low-dose) misoprostol solution and buccal/sublingual misoprostol had the highest likelihood of being cost-effective. Limitations: There was considerable uncertainty in findings and there were insufficient data for some planned subgroup analyses. Conclusions: Overall, misoprostol and oxytocin with amniotomy (for women with favourable cervix) is more successful than other agents in achieving VD within 24 hours. The ranking according to safety of different methods was less clear. The cost-effectiveness analysis suggested that titrated (low-dose) oral misoprostol solution resulted in the highest utility, whereas buccal/sublingual misoprostol had the lowest cost. There was a high degree of uncertainty as to the most cost-effective intervention

Re:produce S5

Materials for Session 5 of the Re:produce Brisbane Workshop held on Dec. 10-11 2019 in Brisbane, A

Disease risk mapping with metamodels for coarse resolution predictors: global potato late blight risk now and under future climate conditions

Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of Plant PathologyKaren A. GarrettLate blight of potato, caused by Phytophthora infestans, is a pernicious disease of potatoes worldwide. This disease causes yield losses as a result of foliar and tuber damage. Many models exist to predict late blight risk for control purposes with-in season but rely upon fine-scale weather data collected in hourly, or finer, increments. This is a major constraint when working with disease prediction models for areas of the world where hourly weather data is not available or is unreliable. Weather or climate summary datasets are often available as monthly summaries. These provide a partial solution to this problem with global data at large time-steps (e.g., monthly). Difficulties arise when attempting to use these forms of data in small temporal scale models. My first objective was to develop new approaches for application of disease forecast models to coarser resolution weather data sets. I created metamodels based on daily and monthly weather values which adapt an existing potato late blight model for use with these coarser forms of data using generalized additive models. The daily and monthly weather metamodels have R-squared values of 0.62 and 0.78 respectively. These new models were used to map global late blight risk under current and climate change scenarios resistant and susceptible varieties. Changes in global disease risk for locations where wild potato species are indigenous, and disease risk for countries where chronic malnutrition is a problem were evaluated. Under the climate change scenario selected for use, A1B, future global late blight severity decreases. The risk patterns do not show major changes, areas of high risk remain high relative to areas of low risk with rather slight increases or decreases relative to previous years. Areas of higher wild potato species richness experience slightly increased blight risk, while areas of lower species richness experience a slight decline in risk

Climate change will create winners and losers in the fight against plant disease

Slides for a presentation delivered by Associate Prof. Adam H. Sparks, DPIRD and USQ, and Dr. Paul Melloy, USQ, to CHaBits (Consortium for Heat and Biotic Stresses) organised by Dr Krishna Jagadish, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA on the effects of climate change on plant disease. The video recording can be found on the CHaBits YouTube: https://youtu.be/PO958Vhdiss

S5 Open Data, Materials and Code

Session provided by Emerson Del Ponte, Francis Gacenga, Adam Spark