Nichola Hawkins
Plant pathologist / evolutionary biologist researching crop protection and antimicrobial resistance in fungal diseases of plants. Evolution and sustainable agriculture. Wild flowers and sharing the love of plants and botany. 🌾🧫🧬🍄🌼
- Reposted by Nichola HawkinsNiab's Charlotte Nellist, Kostya Kanyuka and Nichola Hawkins presenting at yesterday's AHDB UKCPVS stakeholder meeting. Charlotte and Kostya introduced updates from 2025, before Nichola discussed fungicide resistance status in cereals. For more on the UKCPVS see ow.ly/JMjN50XWabj
- In this week's @farmersweeklyuk.bsky.social podcast, @aoifeodriscoll.bsky.social talks about the latest results from our AHDB-funded fungicide resistance monitoring and what this means for growers. omny.fm/shows/the-fa...
- The new SDHIs are highly effective, but with that comes the potential to select for higher levels of resistance, so resistance management is especially important: always mixing with robust partners with different MoAs, and where possible alternating with different MoAs too.
- Reposted by Nichola Hawkins🚨New #PhD #adverts alert🚨 I currently have two PhD studentships being advertised on environmental #AMR ⬇️ More being advertised soon 👀 @ukceh.bsky.social @ukceh-moleco.bsky.social
- Reposted by Nichola HawkinsA fab bunch of talks for Session 1 Disease Management in Practice #PPATH2025 🌾 Helen Bates @niab-uk.bsky.social 🥔 Ashleigh Holmes @hutton.ac.uk 🧬 Aimee Fowkes - Fera x @newcastleuni.bsky.social 🍓 Avice Hall @herts.ac.uk
- Sea couch #SeedHeads, some infected with ergot fungus. On the sand dunes at Bridgwater Bay. #WildFlowerHour
- I always enjoy getting the chance to go out botanising in the field with the @wildflowersociety.bsky.social . This morning's plants included Silver cinquefoil Potentilla argentea, and the stunning hybrid goat's-beard Tragopogon x mirabilis.
- And a rather deceptive plant: this is actually Lesser knapweed, but a rayed form, so it looks like Greater knapweed flowers on a Lesser knapweed plant!
- And on the fungal side, my first puffballs of the year.
- We've seen lots of examples of parallel evolution at the point mutation level in fungicide target encoding genes (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...), and now @thorstenlangner.bsky.social has found repeated evolution of point mutations in a plant pathogen effector, too!
- New paper out now in @britmycolsoc.org.uk Fungal Biology Reviews. Learning from fungicide resistance: Evolutionary insights to guide RNAi-based control of fungal crop pathogens. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Fungicide resistance is a big reason why we need alternative crop protection measures, but we must consider the risk of those other crop protection measures also selecting for resistance, especially for target-specific methods like RNAi.
- This paper was the result of a workshop co-organised by @timbarra.bsky.social, Joris Alkemade and I, bringing together experts in RNAi, fungicides, AMR and fungal evolution.
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View full threadResistance evolution means we absolutely need more tools in the crop protection toolbox, but it also means those new tools must be designed and deployed with resistance in mind. Considering resistance risk and management in advance is far better than only reacting after it emerges.
- Ash flower galls, caused by a mite, Acerina fraxinivora. A heavy infestation like this will reduce seed production but won't kill the tree.
- Viper's bugloss in the evening sunlight #WildFlowerHour #HairyPlants
- A great day hearing from other plant-related research groups around Cambridge.
- Botanicon 2025 - the 3rd annual Plants @ Cambridge conference bringing together plant scientists from across Cambridge to share their work and ideas. @camplantsci.bsky.social @cropscicentre.bsky.social @niab-uk.bsky.social @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social #PlantsAtCambridge
- This week I've been in France for a project meeting of our JPI-AMR project, Aerobiomics-AMR. Between meetings, we saw one of the Cyclone spore traps in action, visited Arvalis field trials with very high levels of brown rust, and stayed in the lovely town of St. Quentin.
- For the #WildFlowerHour #PinkFamily challenge, White campion with bonus #WildPlantDisease Anther smut.
- Reposted by Nichola HawkinsFor the past few months I've been working on bringing to life something that I think is really needed: a field guide to plant pathogens (focusing on fungi and oomycetes). It has gotten to the point where I feel I can share it publically - read more at irishplants.org/blog/2025/03... ! #FungiFriends
- Fungal antimicrobial resistance: online mini-symposium, March 27th. Cutting-edge genomics & fungal AMR breakthroughs with world-leading experts (and me!)
- 🧬 AMR & Genomics: Major Event Loading... 🧬 🚀 Get ready for the TARGetAMR & Fungal ONE Health Joint Mini-Symposium! 🍄🦠 📅 Thursday 27th March | 🕐 1-4 PM GMT 🔥 Cutting-edge genomics & fungal AMR breakthroughs with world-leading experts! 🌍💡 🔗 Register now! 👇 www.targetamr.org.uk/hdrevents/jo...
- Reposted by Nichola HawkinsI am very excited that @target-amr.bsky.social and the Fungal AMR One Health network (www.fungalamr.org) are organising an online mini-symposium on Fungal AMR Genomics on 25 March 1-4 pm GMT. Please sign up here! www.targetamr.org.uk/hdrevents/jo...
