Adrian is an agroecologist and barley / cereal pathologist with over 40 years of research experience. Initially his interests were in cereal pathogen populations and their response to cereal crop variety deployment. Deployment of diversity within cereal crops, referred to as cereal variety mixtures or blends, became a major interest in terms of disease control and resource use efficiency as measured by yield and quality outcomes. His recent focus has been on broader plant diversity interactions in the field from genotypes to species including intercropping, and variety/genotype interactions with soil tillage and crop sequence. Another parallel research interest has been induced resistance, whether through pathogens or application of resistance elicitors, and this now includes the induction mediated by soil microbial communities in soils differentially affected by cultivation and previous crops. These interests feed into current work in the broad area of regenerative agriculture including pasture diversity.
Adrian’s research interests in cereal pathogens continue, including Ramularia collo-cygni (Ramularia Leaf Spot). The crop diversity interest has taken more of an ecological focus working with Hutton colleagues and others, and has encompassed intercropping, especially cereal-legume combinations for both biomass (wholecrop) and grain. His IPM interests in general have included soil cultivation, particularly the effects of non-inversion versus inversion tillage. The particular approach of direct drilling or conservation tillage and it’s farming systems context are another current area of interest and exciting developments.
Some links to previous areas of work: Epidemiology, crop protection and resistance deployment [3]; Resistance elicitors [4]; Analysing epidemic spatial trends and local competition effects in heterogeneous vegetation [5] and cultivar mixtures in general [6].
Adrian is a key staff member leading Integrated Pest and Disease Management (IPM) research at the Institute. For details of ongoing IPM research areas and projects, please visit the IPM@hutton [7] website.
He is also honoured to be a Visiting Professor of Cereal Pathology at SRUC, Edinburgh; an editor for Plant Pathology; a Member of the Association for Crop Protection in Northern Britain Standing Committee and Programme Committee and its Treasurer; a Member of HGCA Barley, Oats and Other cereals Recommended List Committee; a Member of Scottish Variety Consultative Committee (Cereals); a Member of the International Committee for the International Workshop on Barley Leaf Diseases; a Member of the Scottish Society for Crop Research - Combinable and Energy Crops Committee; and an Associate of the Centre for Environmental Change and Human Resilience.
Current research projects
Links:
[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0303-6706
[2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=a9TJ89AAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate
[3] http://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/groups/cell-and-molecular-sciences/rhynchosporium-barley/epidemiology
[4] http://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/groups/cell-and-molecular-sciences/rhynchosporium-barley/epidemiology/resistance-elicitors
[5] http://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/groups/cell-and-molecular-sciences/rhynchosporium-barley/epidemiology/variety-mixtures
[6] http://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/groups/cell-and-molecular-sciences/rhynchosporium-barley/epidemiology/mixtures
[7] http://ipm.hutton.ac.uk/