Louise Cooke Memorial Meeting
In memory of Dr. Louise Cooke a two day conference was hosted by SIPP and AFBI on 13th and 14 June, 2024. Photos of the event, courtesy of the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, are displayed below
The conference proceedings are available for viewing below or for download here in pdf:
Event Recap
Day 1 opened with tributes to Dr. Cooke's contributions to plant pathology in Ireland, the UK and abroad. Dr. Alistair McCracken highlighted Dr. Cooke’s contributions to the Fungicide Resistance Action Group (FRAG-UK), Euroblight, Asiablight and her role as Editor of the Plant Pathology journal. Key presentations followed with Prof. Jean Ristaino discussing new tools to study the emergence, migration and evolution of Phytophthora infestans and highlighted the use of social media mining for monitoring outbreaks. Dr. David Cooke discussed the use of eDNA metabarcoding to assess oomycete diversity, while Dr. Alison Lees reviewed challenges in managing potato late blight, focusing on evolving pathogen populations and fungicide resistance. Prof. Ristaino also highlighted the contributions of pioneering women in plant pathology, such as Mary Glynne and Eva Sansome, acknowledging their significant roles in advancing the field of plant pathology.
On Day 2, Prof. Fiona Burnett discussed fungicide resistance, highlighting challenges in cereal stewardship. Dr. Hazel Brown shared insights into the InnoVar project, which accelerates crop variety testing using drone data. Dr. Hadj Ahmed Belouni highlighted gaps in genomic data between the NCBI database and UK Pest Risk Register. While Dr. Deirdre Fay discussed Ireland's approach to plant health, biosecurity, and international collaboration. Dr. Flor Spaans investigated the impact of the ash sawfly in Ireland, noting that its impact could be intensified by a lack of natural enemies and/or potential interactions with ash dieback disease. Dr. Anna Tiley gave an update on ash dieback research, and Dr. Richard O'Hanlon presented an overview of the work conducted at DAFM’s Plant Health Laboratories, highlighting diagnostics performed, trends and challenges faced.