Joint meeting Parthcar – Genecar

A small delegation from Pathcar and Genecar met in Helsinki 12-13 November to learn more about current projects, future plans and discuss co-operation. All participants presented work in their countries, institutes and research groups.

During the meeting the group identified several areas in which joined forces between pathologists and geneticist would be advantageous to make significant progress.

• One obvious area for joint research is resistance breeding for root rot (Heterobasidion annosum). The root rot is the single most harmful pathogen in spruce forests. Only in Norway the annual costs associated with the disease is estimated to about €12,000,000. Resistance breeding could also be promising for the blue stain fungi, to a lesser degree for the Dutch elm disease for which there is limited resistance in Ulmus glabra.

• The ash decline, caused by a recently identified fungi (Chalara fraxinea), is a serious threat to ash. The biology, origin and mode of infection are essentially unknown. There are indications of heritable resistance based on inoculation studies in Danish trials, which is promising for breeding. There are also other new diseases appearing in Fennoscandia/ the Baltic and on Iceland .

• Stump removal is widely practiced in Finland and Sweden . More research is needed to study the effect in controlling root rot, as well as effects on nutrient cycling and soil biology.

The main obstacle for joint research is the lack of a suitable Nordic financing instrument with a grant budget that can support the actual research and not only networking and seed money. There are some financing bodies within the Nordic Council of Ministers that could contribute, but substantial additional input from national sources as well as through EU would also be needed. The meeting concluded that a subgroup would meet and evaluate the possibility to prepare an application in response to suitable calls.