Location: Sugarbeet Research
Project Number: 3060-21000-045-040-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Sep 1, 2025
End Date: Aug 31, 2026
Objective:
1) Characterize shifts in C. beticola populations surrounding fungicide applications during the sugarbeet growing season using molecular assays.
2) Evaluate the correlation between drone imaging and satellite imagery for CLS disease progression monitoring.
3) Identify core effectors deployed by C. beticola important for pathogen infection.
4) Functionally characterize the role core effectors play in the infection mechanism of C. beticola.
Approach:
This research will use molecular qPCR assays to monitor Cercospora beticola pathogen populations throughout the sugarbeet growing season to monitor for shifts in fungicide resistance mutations. Concurrent with this sampling, drone imaging will be conducted on sampled commercial fields to be compared to satellite imagery with the goal of validating a satelite image based disease monitoring system for sugarbeet production. Parallel to this epidemiological work, molecular experiments will be conducted to identify core pathogen genes necessary for infection initiation on sugarbeet. A large population of sequenced C. beticola isolates is readily available and coupled with transcriptional data from an infection time course, we aim to identify candidate genes involved in infection establishment on sugarbeet. After identifying candidate genes, molecular experiments will be conducted to disrupt candidate genes and observed the effect of the gene disruption on infection progression. Any candidates observed to be critical for infection following gene disruption experiments will be further functionally characterized for their role in infection via in planta localization experiments whereby the protein produced by the candidate gene is fused to a florescent protein and observed using florescent microscopy. Using this two pronged approach to better understand the disease epidemiology and molecular mechanism of infection, we aim to better understand C. beticola pathogenesis to aid in designing more efficacious managment practices.