One of the biggest threats to achieving sustainable agriculture is the ability of pests and pathogens to overcome genetic resistance bred or engineered into crops. However, in natural ecosystems the co-evolution of hosts and their parasites (pests and diseases) generally leads to a durable and sustainable balance.

Understanding this balance, which has genetic interaction with the environment at its centre, will lead to manipulation of the key interactions in favour of stability in agricultural eco-systems which favour the crop.

We bring together molecular biology of host–parasite interactions with chemical ecology and epidemiology, studying pests and diseases of economically important crops into a co-evolutionary framework. We work closely with LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) as part of the SCRI LEAF Innovation Centre.

The main host–pathogen systems studied are:

• blight epidemiology and population biology
• virus-aphid vector interactions
• diagnostics and epidemiology of fungal potato pathogens
• rhynchosporium on barley
• insect and mite ecology and integrated crop management (ICM)
• potato cyst nematodes 
• soft fruit pathology and entomology
• Potato mop-top virus and Spongospora subterranea.