BBSRC-HGCA Black-grass Resistance Initiative

Unravelling herbicide resistance in black-grass from gene to field

In July, Bayer held its first ‘Black-grass Live’ event which consisted of a Question-Time style format with a chairperson and a panel of six experts to lead the conversation and answer questions submitted by the audience. BGRI member Richard Hull from Rothamsted Research was invited to be part of the panel and Laura Crook, also from Rothamsted, attended the event. As well as an audience of farmers and journalists, the whole show was streamed live on the internet for the public to watch.

The questions were divided into four areas to consider the key topics for controlling black-grass; resistance, cultivations, cropping and chemistry. Discussions included the potential resistance to glyphosate in the future, rotations and cover crops, the strive for new chemistry and a debate over the best cultivation strategy. The whole event was a great success and interesting to hear the views of farmers working at the frontline, tackling the huge problem that black-grass is causing on farm.

A recording of the event can be viewed here.

On Saturday 9th July 2016, BGRI member Laura Crook from Rothamsted Research took part in a Soapbox Science event at Milton Keynes shopping centre. As part of the Soapbox science platform promoting the achievements of women in science, Laura took to her ‘soapbox’ for an hour, speaking to passing shoppers about Black-grass, herbicide resistance, and the importance of technicians in science.

Complete with specimen Black-grass plants as props, Laura took the opportunity to raise awareness of the UK Black-grass problem and the BGRI project with the wider public, as well as encouraging people to consider a career in science. There was considerable interest from the public over the event, and Laura said she really enjoyed the whole experience. Many thanks to the other BGRI members and Laura’s family for their support, and thanks for the level of interest, and the many, many questions from everyone that stopped by.

Once again the BGRI team were out in force at this year’s Cereals event, held over the 15th and 16th June at Duxford. The BGRI plot on the BBSRC/Rothamsted Research stand featured wheat at four different levels of Black-grass infestation, demonstrating the different scales of problem encountered by our field team.

As usual, members of the BGRI were present over both days to answer your black-grass related questions, discuss the project, and share the results that we’ve discovered so far. Our annual Black-grass Breakfast meeting took place on the morning of the 15th providing an update on current progress, and this year included one of the first public demonstrations of our prototype resistance diagnostic kit, under development by BGRI researchers at Newcastle University. Many thanks to everyone who dropped by our stand over the two days, and remember to watch our website for further updates as the project develops.

From 1st May, the BGRI team has an additional member. Alexa Varah will be working with Ken Norris at ZSL to look at the environmental and economic impacts of resistance management strategies. This will involve building scenarios for resistance management and creating computer models to predict the likely impacts on farmland biodiversity, water quality and greenhouse gas emissions.

Alexa Varah

My research looks at relationships between agricultural systems and biodiversity conservation. I am especially interested in finding ways of maximising food production whilst simultaneously conserving biodiversity and providing other environmental benefits.

The third installment of our Black-grass Bulletin project newsletter is here! Blackgrass Bulletin Issue 3

The Black-grass Bulletin will keep you up to date with what’s happening across all areas of our research over the 4 years of the project. This third issue covers the results of the completed herbicide resistance testing carried out over 2014-2015, and how we'll be building on this data over 2016.

The BGRI held its second Farmer Focus Workshop on 19th November 2015, in Cambridgeshire, kindly hosted by Paul Drinkwater. The aim of this meeting was to update on the various aspects of the project whilst hearing the farmers own experiences of black-grass control and their views on the BGRI project.

Project updates were heard from Rothamsted and Sheffield University in the morning reporting on the two completed seasons of the density mapping and the dose response phenotyping experiments using the seed samples collected in the summer of 2014. There was also preliminary data presented of the trends in agricultural practices over the 70 farms from the management data collected by Sheffield.

The farmers were given the floor just before lunch to give their views on the project and the current battle with black-grass which proved to be a lengthy but lively discussion. Topics included grass leys, cover crops and rotations. There was also recognition from some that there are many organisations undertaking agricultural research but that a more collaborative approach between them all could help to tackle some of the big problems facing farmers.

The afternoon started with a presentation from Newcastle University comparing the current tests available for testing black-grass resistance and the potential for developing a device that can help detect Non-Target Site Resistance in the field. Unsurprisingly this idea was enthusiastically received by those around the table. The workshop finished with a discussion led by Paul Neve on possible new approaches to managing resistance such as the Harrington Seed destructor, RNAi, allelopathy, safeners and glyphosate resistance.

All participants found the meeting very constructive and many thanks go to the farmers who attended the workshop. The continuing interest in the Farmer Focus groups ensures that these meetings will take place in the future.

The BGRI has a new team member from the start of this month. Shaun will be developing mathematical models to understand how field- and landscape-scale processes influence the evolution of herbicide resistance.

Shaun Coutts

I am a quantitative ecologist who uses statistical, analytical and simulation models to look at pressing environmental issues such as invasive species spread and management and wildlife harvest. I also use these approaches to address fundamental questions in ecology such as what drives population dynamics and what allows species to co-exist? This work encompasses a wide range of topics such as population dynamics, community ecology, dispersal ecology, and social-economic systems. I am currently modelling the evolution of herbicide resistance in black grass to test how fast and under what circumstances we might expect herbicide resistance to evolve.

On July 16th, the BGRI team will be in Harrogate for a Farmer-Scientist Network hosted Black-grass seminar. The session will be chaired by Rob Edwards, and will include contributions from other BGRI members Paul Neve and Rob Freckleton. Come along to learn more about the BGRI's research, and to discuss the opportunities and challenges in controlling this weed.

Come and see the BGRI team on the BBSRC-Rothamsted stand at Cereals next week. BGRI researchers will be present throughout the event to provide updates on the latest research (including the national resistance audit), talk about future plans and listen to the experience of those managing black-grass at the coal face. On the second day (Thursday 11th June), Paul Neve will give a brief update on the BGRI project at a BBSRC-hosted breakfast briefing.

Hot off the press! Here's the second installment of our Black-grass Bulletin Black-grass Bulletin, our project newsletter.

The Black-grass Bulletin will keep you up to date with what’s happening across all areas of our research over the 4 years of the project. This second issue focusses on identifying the molecular mechanisms underpinning multi-herbicide resistance and the potential for developing in-field diagnostic tools.

On 12th February, the BGRI held its inaugural Farmer Focus Workshop. Many thanks to all of the farmers who attended the event in Warwickshire last week. This first meeting provided an opportunity for the BGRI team to introduce farmers to the science behind the project and to seek their views on research objectives and priorities.

The aim of these workshops is to facilitate communication and knowledge exchange between the BGRI and the farming community. We want to disseminate the findings of our research to farmers, but also to get their feedback on how useful this is and in which direction they think our research should be headed. To do this have established a group of 8 farmers who are interested in the science behind black-grass management.

After the BGRI gave a brief introduction to the project, each of the participants provided an overview of their current black-grass management activities and thoughts on herbicide resistance, black-grass and weed management in general. This was followed by a lively discussion on different approaches to, and reasons behind, techniques for black-grass management.

The day was rounded off with a farm walk around a nearby farm that is participating in the monitoring surveys, and a return into the warm for a cup of tea and a de-brief.

Through this initial meeting, we have developed relationships that will enable the BGRI to establish effective communication with those working at the ‘coal face’ of the burgeoning herbicide resistance problem. Participants in the workshop were enthusiastic about the project and are keen to continue attending. The plan now is to visit some of the different farms of those participating in the group as part of our next few Farmer Focus Workshops.

On Thursday 25th September the BGRI held its first stakeholder meeting. Representatives from 14 organisations made the journey to London to attend our meeting at ZSL – not only on the promise of a lunchtime pass into the zoo, but more importantly, to get updates from the BGRI team and to contribute to the project.

We kicked off proceedings with a round-up from each of the PIs. First up, Rob Edwards gave us a run down on the genetics work that has been undertaken so far. Of the 17,000 genes in black-grass, 1600 have been found to change in response to herbicide resistance and 24 have been identified as possible markers of resistance. One particular gene, associated with a protein with enzyme activity, is consistently upregulated and we’re using this to develop a pocket-based diagnostic kit to detect resistance in the field.

Rob Freckleton talked through the black-grass density mapping work that has been carried out over the summer and revealed that of all the 20x20m grid squares surveyed, only 12% had no black-grass in them. Very high densities of the weed were recorded in 15% of grid squares, while 1% had been sprayed off to kill the black-grass before it set seed. He said that knowing the management histories for the sampled fields will help us begin to understand how such high density populations develop.

Seed collection over the summer has supplied seeds for the herbicide resistance trials over the coming months. Paul Neve gave details on plans for the resistance testing, with 190 populations of black-grass to be tested for resistance to both ALS and ACCase herbicides under glasshouse conditions. Plans were also outlined to extract DNA from 36 individuals in each black-grass population and test plants directly for the individual ALS and ACCase resistance mutations present. These experiments should be completed by spring 2015, and the results will inform us of the current extent and types of resistance occurring across the range of farms surveyed this summer. Future work looking at the eco-evolutionary modelling of black-grass populations was also discussed, alongside work to explore the economic and environmental consequences of resistance management strategies using farm-scale cost-benefit analyses.

The afternoon session was run in small break-out groups which discussed 3 topics:

1. Adding value to the BGRI project and the concept of ‘BGRI-plus’ as a means to facilitate future funding and collaborative opportunities between the BGRI team, stakeholders and the wider research community in the UK and Europe.

   BGRI-plus The core BBSRC/HGCA funded black-grass project (1) can collaborate with partner institutes (2) and individual industrial partners (3):
   

   

2. Maximising impact of the results of the BGRI project and making sure that they’re converted into workable solutions for black-grass management.

3. Future linked projects including new opportunities for collaboration and possible funding streams for researching novel solutions for management of black-grass.

Overall, we had an incredibly productive day of ideas-sharing and were delighted with the enthusiasm and contributions from all of the stakeholders.

Now that our summer survey season is over we thought we would take this opportunity to give you an update on progress. Here is the very first issue of the Black-grass Bulletin, our project newsletter.

The Black-grass Bulletin will keep you up to date with what’s happening across all areas of our research over the 4 years of the project. This first issue focusses on the mapping work that we carried out this summer, the seed sampling, plans for the herbicide resistance testing, and an update on media coverage of the project.

Since the launch of the BGRI in June we've received some fantastic media coverage. Check out the following article: "Project promise on resistance conundrum" published in the August edition of Crop Production Magazine.

More CPM back issues can be found here.

After a busy field season mapping black-grass densities and collecting seeds, the BGRI team are now back in the office and the glasshouses preparing seeds for resistance testing and collating field management data. We would like to thank everyone that has helped to make this summer’s surveys and seed collection so successful!

Starting at the foot of the Chilterns in South Oxfordshire and winding our way up through 11 counties, we visited 71 farms and mapped a total of 138 fields of black-grass, to end up on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. We surveyed everything from a sea of black-grass with well over 100 plants per m², to a clean wheat field with only a few wisps of the troublesome weed.

The next step for this part of the project is to gather management information for each of the fields that were surveyed, to try and tease apart links between tillage, herbicide application, crop rotation and the prevalence of black-grass and evolving herbicide resistance.

Another major goal of the BGRI this summer has been to collect black-grass seed from as many farms as possible, allowing us to later look at the distribution of resistance across the country. As a result, come rain or shine this summer our teams have been scouring the countryside for wheat fields containing black-grass to collect seed from. We even enlisted the help of farmers from sites we couldn’t reach, to collect their own samples and to post them to us.

Since returning from the field, our attention turns to the un-enviable task of weighing the seed samples, and carefully cleaning them to remove immature and infertile seeds ready to begin resistance testing.

The BGRI team are now back at work, after spending a productive, if somewhat hot and sticky two days at this year’s Cereals event in Duxford, Cambridgeshire. For some of the team, this was our first Cereals event, and it proved a great opportunity to meet and speak with farmers, their agronomists and the wider industry about the burgeoning threat from black-grass.

It was very clear that the 2013/14 season has been a bad year for black-grass and that the start of the new BGRI project is very timely. The new team members have returned from Cereals with a clearer picture of the size of the task at hand and a great enthusiasm for the coming summer field season.

On Thursday morning, the BGRI project was officially launched at the BBSRC science breakfast, and it was great to see such a large crowd interested to find out more about the project. We’ve spoken to a great number of people over the last two days, and would like to thank everyone who came over and expressed an interest. We are now looking forward to contacting growers across the country and establishing our network of sites for the coming field season. If you missed us at Cereals but would like to help, it’s not too late! Just E-mail our team at BGRI@Rothamsted.ac.uk and we’ll do our best to get in contact with you very soon.

Thanks again to everyone for the amazing interest that we’ve had over the last two days, and we look forward to seeing you again at Cereals 2015.

Just in time for Cereals 2014. Follow us on Twitter to find out more. For the moment the site just provides an overview of the project. As the BGRI develops though, it will act as a repository for project outputs. We'll also be posting employment opportunities as they arise.

Three new members of the BGRI have started this month. Together they will be overseeing the resistance audit and field-scale monitoring of black-grass densities across our netowrk of farms.

Laura Crook

I have an undergraduate degree in Environmental Conservation from the University of Bangor. I undertook 2 seasons of lapwing surveying for the RSPB in 2009 and 2010 which involved visiting farmers’ fields in the Hiraethog area of North Wales to record field information and observe breeding pairs of lapwings and their chicks. For the past two and a half years I have worked as a research technician at the University of Sheffield comparing seed size with seedling growth, death and interactions in the environment of various UK grass and broadleaved species. This involved setting up and carrying out experiments in the field and in glasshouses. I also managed the large datasets for the project and carried out pH, KCL extractions and Olsen P tests on soils collected from the field plots. As a research technician on the BGRI project I will mainly be collecting seed, setting up and managing the glasshouse experiments, applying the herbicides and measuring the phenotypic characteristics of the different populations.

David Comont

I have a degree in environmental biology and a PhD in plant ecology from Aberystwyth University. My past research has focussed on the short- and longer-term effects of changes in environmental conditions on plant communities, and more recently investigating vegetation effects on soil health. I have worked at long-term field sites in the Swedish sub-Arctic, as well as closer to home at field sites across Wales, and I am keen to continue investigating the linkages between environmental pressures and plant performance. In particular I have focussed on the forage grass Lolium perenne, investigating its ecological tolerance to an environmental gradient across Europe and the effects of this on productivity and forage quality. I will be involved in the BGRI’s upcoming resistance audit, highlighting the extent of current herbicide resistance in blackgrass populations in the UK. I will be researching the processes by which this herbicide resistance evolves, with the aim that this research contributes to the development of management strategies to mitigate further herbicide resistance in the field.

Helen Hicks

My research focusses on the relationships between land-use, food production and biodiversity. I have a degree in Geography (BSc) which gives me a strong understanding of landscape-scale processes, and a PhD in Ecology that has provided me with an in depth knowledge of managing biodiversity on farmlands in the UK. Until now my work has focussed mainly on managing margins of cropped areas through agri-environment schemes and investigated the potential of these schemes to provide national level improvements to farmland bird populations. Working with the Black-Grass Resistance Initiative (BGRI), I will be switching the focus of my research to the management of cropped areas of agricultural landscapes and looking at how farm management practices influence arable weed establishment, persistence and herbicide resistance patterns. This summer I will be getting the BGRI field programme up and running. I will be organising visits to over 70 farms across the country to survey for Black-Grass and looking at how herbicide application, crop rotation and ploughing regimes can influence herbicide resistance patterns.