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As the global population surpasses 8 billion, the challenge of producing sufficient food becomes increasingly pressing. The Netherlands stands as the world's second-largest food exporter, efficiently cultivating a wide variety of crops. However, plant diseases such as downy mildew pose significant threats, potentially spoiling farmers' harvests.

Dutch researchers from Delft University of Technology have developed the first-ever method to monitor infections in plants in real-time, without the need to destroy them. This knowledge will aid in breeding new, resistant crops that yield higher outputs while reducing pesticide use. The findings are now published in Nature Communications.

Resistant crops

Farmers growing lettuce prefer varieties that are resistant to various diseases, including downy mildew, a common plant disease that causes yellow or brown spots on the upper surfaces of leaves. Delft scientists investigated downy mildew infections in lettuce, a plant species where such infections are typically only visible in their later stages.

"There are indeed lettuce varieties that are resistant to downy mildew, but similar to the coronavirus, the disease continually evolves into new variants that can still infect resistant plants. This forces scientists and breeders into a constant race to develop new resistant crops in response to evolving diseases," explains physicist Jos de Wit, who collaborated with biologists from Utrecht University for his doctoral research.

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