Teagasc will trial a new Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV) prediction model over a three year period it has confirmed at the 2023 National Tillage Conference in Co. Kilkenny today (Wednesday, January 25).
Teagasc will trial the UK’s Agricultural Development and Advisory Service (ADAS) new Adas Crop BYDV Assessment Tool (ACroBAT) – which is a replacement for its T Sum tool.
Dr Sacha White from ADAS, UK highlighted to conference delegates why better BYDV decision support tools are important for cereal growers.
Dr White detailed that the new ADAS model draws down information on aphids gained from suction traps.
The senior ADAS researcher said it also takes account of ambient temperature and an estimated value for the proportion of aphids that carry the BYDV virus.
“Previously, it was thought that 10% of aphids carry the virus. It’s now believed this figure is closer to 20%,” he said.
“ACroBAT will also give a real time recommendation as to whether it is economically viable to apply an insecticide.
“The results generated by the new programme are less conservative, in this context, than would have been the case with the T Sum model,” Dr White added.
According to the senior researcher the final report on ACroBAT will be considered by ADAS management over the coming months.
The decision to trial the model in Ireland will allow the data generated by Teagasc’s aphid traps to be fully included within the final crop management recommendations.
In the UK the main BYDV vectors are the bird cherry-oat aphid and the grain aphid.
However, in Ireland, the grain aphid is the almost sole disease vector.
The 2023 National Tillage Conference heard that BYDV can bring about an 80% reduction in grain yield under Irish conditions.
The theme of today’s conference is ‘Mitigating risks that challenge future sustainable production and tillage experts discussed the various BYDV control measures that are now, or will soon be, available to Irish cereal growers.
They detailed that there is a growing anticipation that BYDV resistant or tolerant varieties will play an important role in controlling the disease.
Teagasc tillage specialist Ciaran Collins stressed the role of effective rotation in controlling BYDV.
He said that continuous winter and spring barley-based cropping systems are particularly susceptible to BYDV.
Collins also highlighted that effective management of the green bridges within a tillage operation can also deliver significant BYDV disease control levels.
He said that farmers who are growing organic cereals should be aware that there is a range of natural defence systems that can be employed, from a BYDV control perspective, which also include the use of fungi.