Powdery Mildew Capability Building Workshop

The Powdery Mildew Capability Building Workshop will be organized at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), Toowoomba, from 14-18 November 2022, with funding received from the commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF). Powdery mildews are increasingly intercepted by DAFF during national border surveillance, border inspections and the Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy. In addition, there is a need for surveillance and diagnostic expertise in state department and industry programs to recognise, collect and identify powdery mildew fungi that impact Australian agriculture.

In 2018, a powdery mildew workshop at USQ, Toowoomba, focused on diagnostics and resulted in a paper that provided the first comprehensive catalog of this group of plant pathogens (https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.903024). Since then, new species have emerged as potential biosecurity risks and many undetermined specimens were collected across the country. The Workshop in November 2022 will integrate surveillance and diagnostics skills and will provide an extended, up-to-date catalog of the Australian powdery mildew species based on new specimens identified with modern molecular tools and light microscopy.

If interested, please send an email to Prof Levente Kiss at USQ (Levente.Kiss@usq.edu.au) or Dr Aaron Maxwell at DAFF (aaron.maxwell@awe.gov.au) no later than COB Wednesday, 7^th September 2022. Information for potential participants:

• DAFF professionals will be fully funded to attend the Workshop.
• Other participants will have to pay for their travel and accommodation, and places are limited.
• If interested in contributing to this project with powdery mildew specimens and/or DNA species barcodes determined in your specimens, without attending the Workshop, please do so by sending an email to Levente or Aaron by COB 7^th September 2022. Contributors shall become co-authors of the research paper that may result from the Workshop.