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The control of grass weeds in wheat represents one of the greatest challenges to sustainable intensification in arable agriculture in Northern Europe. Since the early 1980s, this problem has been compounded by the rapid spread of herbicide resistance in the problem weed black-grass (Alopecurus myosuroides L.).  Infestation with herbicide resistant black-grass has now been reported at over a 1000 sites in the UK, with resultant crop losses calculated at between 15-35% due to yield and quality losses. 

In the face of herbicide resistance, farmers now need rapid and robust diagnostic technologies in order to deploy alternative weed control strategies within a growing season.  Currently, detecting herbicide resistance typically takes 6 weeks, and only informs control options for the following season, not the current one.  Fera scientists are evaluating both metabolomics and genomics as approaches to generating rapid diagnostic biomarkers specifically for MHR in black-grass. 

Metabolomics studies changes in concentration, interaction and location of metabolites – small molecules that originate from cellular processes. It can therefore be used to describe the physiological state of a cell/organism and its responses to genetic and environmental changes.  Genomics is the study of genes in an organism – it focuses on sequencing DNA and  identifying specific genes in that sequence which could be of interest.  It is hoped these “omic” approaches will reduce the time needed to diagnose resistance and highlight an optimal method, which could be developed for diagnosing resistance based on either small molecule recognition or genetic markers.