HealthyPlants: A systematic survey of cultivated plant viruses and cereal virus reservoirs.

Plant viruses continue to be one of the main threats to European agriculture, exacerbated by climate change, evolution of pesticide resistance, and loss of crop protection chemistries.

Europe has ambitions of creating a more sustainable food system with a goal of reducing pesticide usage by 50% by 2030 as part of the European Farm to Fork Strategy.

Achieving these goals requires robust integrated pest-management (IPM) approaches and real-time decision support systems (DSS) for farmers.

In disease management there is a strong reliance on rapid, sensitive, and specific diagnostic tools built on a clear understanding of viral diversity.

HealthyPlants will use high-throughput sequencing to (i) complete the first systematic survey of viruses of cultivated plants in Ireland and establish a baseline upon which to build improved diagnostic tools, (ii) establish the importance of arable margins and hedgerows as cereal virus reservoirs, and (iii) identify viruses on newly imported crops with potential phytosanitary risks.

HealthyPlants will deliver the first database of viral sequences of cultivated plants on the island of Ireland, an open-access platform to support development of robust diagnostics within Europe.