Student wins poster prize for grape rot research
Student wins poster prize for grape rot research
Katie’s poster presented her PhD research on
Botrytis bunch rot (caused by
Botrytis cinerea), which is one of the most economically important grape diseases in the wine industry.
Botrytis can affect grape yield and wine quality.
The poster shows results from an experiment Katie conducted on a Coal River Valley Chardonnay vineyard.
“My experiment suggests that most
Botrytis rot spreads from berry to berry within a bunch, rather than from one infected bunch to another,” Katie said.
This discovery could help wine growers to manage the treatment of
Botrytis rot more effectively. Katie will be conducting further work to determine whether these results can be generalised to other sites.
The $1000 prize for Best Student Poster was given by the Wine Innovation Cluster (WIC). Co-authors of the poster are Dr Kathy Evans (Primary Supervisor) and Dr Rob Bramley (CSIRO and collaborator on the experiment). During the conference Katie also attended the Botrytis Management Workshop and presented some of the research findings to industry.
The PhD is part of a larger project that is focusing on
Botrytis bunch rot management and the development of a
Botrytis Risk model (project is managed by Dr Kathy Evans). Other PhD supervisors who were not authors are Dr Karen Barry (UTAS), Dr Jacqueline Edwards (Department of Primary Industries, Victoria) and Associate Professor Lance Cadle-Davidson (USDA, NYSAES). The project is also funded by the Grape and Research Development Corporation who also funded Katie’s attendance at the conference.
View the winning poster (850 kB pdf)
Published on: 25 May 2011
