World Potato Congress Webinar: 'Late Blight: 175 years of experience. What have we learned? An update.' by Albert Schirring

The World Potato Congress is very pleased to present its next webinar on Wednesday, March 31, 2021 with Albert Schirring, Strategy Lead Vegetables & Potato, Bayer AG.

Presentation Outline:

Late blight caused by the fungal-like pathogen Phytophthora infestans is a challenging pathogen to control. One hundred-seventy-five years after the devastating outbreaks in Ireland, late blight still causes worldwide economic losses.

Key lessons from the past provide us the basis for an integrated approach to support small and large-scale farmers around the world in controlling the disease to secure their income and sustain national food security. The key principles of robust late blight management strategies will be discussed.

It is based on the control of primary inoculum, the adoption of tolerant varieties with stacked resistance genes, the implementation of an optimized fungicide strategy according to crop growth stages in which optimal application timings are digital-enabled.

Special attention will be given to the global population dynamics of the late blight pathogen to improve fungicide resistance management strategies, building on the outcomes of research networks in Europe (Euroblight), USA (USAblight), Latam (Tizon Latino), and APAC.

Overall there are exciting new outlooks for production concepts reducing the impact of Phytophthora on productivity to deliver on the UN sustainability goals to benefit all foods system participants.
Albert Schirring, born at Emmen (Netherlands), studied agronomy at the Agricultural High School in Groningen from 1977-1981. He finished the Wageningen University in 1989 and graduated in Plant Pathology majoring in fungicide resistance management and control strategies for soil-borne pathogens.

Schirring started his professional career in the crop protection industry in 1987 at Schering Aagrunol B.V. in the Netherlands heading the development department for horticultural and vegetable crops. In 1992 he moved into a marketing position for vegetable and horticultural crops in the AgrEvo organization.

From 1996-2000 he worked as crop manager for vegetable and horticultural crops in the region North West Europe representing the United Kingdom, Benelux, Germany, and the Nordics. After the formation of Aventis in 1999, he moved to Global Marketing department in Lyon to assume a position as global product manager for potato and vegetable fungicides.

At the end of 2002 after the formation of Bayer Crop Science, he assumed the position of the team lead in fungicides for Potato & Vegetables. Since then, he held different positions related to that field including strategic business management of vegetables and potatoes.

Previous World Potato Congress Webinars

In case you missed previous World Potato Congress webinars, you can view all webinars on the World Potato Congress Inc. website at www.potatocongress.org. WPC Inc. looks forward to interacting with you during this initiative. We welcome all your feedback via email: info@potatocongress.org.