Resistance risk assessment of cereal eyespot, Tapesia yallundae and Tapesia acuformis, to the anilinopyrimidine fungicide, cyprodinil

Eyespot pathogens, Tapesia yallundae and Tapesia acuformis, were isolated from two trial sites in the UK over several years. Both sites were treated with 2 applications per year of cyprodinil (a new anilinopyrimidine fungicide), prochloraz and a mixture of cyprodinil with prochloraz. One trial site was exposed to cyprodinil for 3 years, and the second for a total of 11 years, including 5 years before the trial was initiated. Control of eyespot and sensitivity to cyprodinil were monitored. During the first 3 years of the trial, disease control with all fungicide treatments ranged from 43% to 82%. At the site, where the trial was extended for a further 3 years, control then began to decline but no practical resistance was detected. The decline in control by both fungicides suggests that factors other than reduced sensitivity might be involved. Field isolates of both T. yallundae and T. acuformis with reduced sensitivity to cyprodinil were found predominantly in plots treated with cyprodinil. A reduction in sensitivity to cyprodinil was identified in the population from cyprodinil-treated plots in two years out of six, and in the population from mixture plots in the final year. No obvious trends could be identified and in-vivo studies showed control of most isolates with reduced sensitivity could be regained by increasing the dose to one tenth of the recommended field rate. Analysis of progeny from sexual crosses involving a sensitive isolate and a field isolate with an ED,, value higher than the baseline sensitivity range indicated that a single gene controlled the reduction in sensitivity to cyprodinil in one T. yallundae isolate. There is clearly a resistance risk in eyespot to cyprodinil. The reduction in sensitivity is monogenic in inheritance and at a significant level in some isolates, but any shift in sensitivity in field populations has so far been gradual.