Desirable methods for disease control can not only increase crop productivity by reducing disease severity, without seriously negative impacts on the environment and farmer’s incomes, but also be durable.

The success of modern agriculture is mainly dependent on agrochemicals which may cause environmental problems and resistance genes introduced into modern cultivars through lengthy breeding programmes. Furthermore, these conventional methods of disease management have proved not to be durable in many host–pathogen systems due to the evolution of pathogen populations. In this case, knowledge on population and evolutionary biology of plant pathogens is important to understand disease epidemiology, to effectively breed and use resistant cultivars, and therefore to control plant diseases.

We use a combination of field experimental evolution, molecular marker technology and computer modelling to study the population genetics and evolutionary biology of R. secalis and apply this knowledge to develop economically and environmentally sound strategies for barley leaf blotch management.