Thesis supervisor: Éva Várallyay
co-supervisor: András Péter Takács
Location of studies (in Hungarian): MATE-Plant Protection Institute Abbreviation of location of studies: MATE
Description of the research topic:
Decline of vineyards and orchards is a big agronomic problem decreasing crop yield constantly.
Grapevine and fruit trees can be infected by different pathogens. Weeds presenting at vineyards and orchards can also host some of these pathogens together with their vectors. This is why infected weeds can act a pathogen reservoir which has to be considered during sustainable management.
Traditional diagnostic methods of fruit trees and viruses can only test the presence of a particular pathogen, but with high-throughput based metagenomics approaches we can prove the presence of all of the presenting pathogens: bacterial, fungal and viral pathogens as well.
The aim of the research is to survey the presence of pathogens in horticultural crops (grapevine and fruit trees) and in the weeds originating from the same location. The survey is planned to carry out both in the country of the applicant and in Hungary.
From the collected samples nucleic acid will be extracted and used for HTS. The gained data will be analysed using bioinformatic methods what will be validated by PCR or RT-PCR. Pathogen lists (patogenomes) of the horticultural plants will be compared to the patogenomes of the presenting weeds to reveal any possible infection possibility. The presence of plant and fungi infecting mycoviruses will also be investigated.
Our results will give information about the pathogens present at the investigated locations. This detailed information would help us not only to plan plant protection strategies, but find new avenues to prevent their spread and minimise their damage.
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