An Audit of Plant Pathology Education and Training in the UK, published by the British Society for Plant Pathology (BSPP), reports a serious decline in teaching and research on plant diseases in British universities and colleges.

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Plant pathology has been lost completely or greatly reduced at 11 universities and colleges while fewer than half the institutions which teach biology, agriculture or forestry offer courses in plant pathology. The audit revealed that, of the higher education institutions examined, fewer than half of the 103 offering biology, agriculture, horticulture or forestry at BSc level provide teaching in plant pathology and in those that do, teaching can be as little as one or two lectures.

The BSPP researchers also said the age profile of plant pathologists in higher education is a cause for "major concern"; it is not known how many teachers in higher education will be available to teach plant pathology in 5-10 years time.

Professor James Brown, President of the British Society of Plant Pathology, commented on Thursday (1st November) "These job losses are severe. Britain is not producing graduates with the expertise needed to identify and control plant diseases in our farms and woodlands. One of the most worrying finding is the decline in practical training in plant pathology', Professor Brown said. 'Only one in seven universities now provide practical classes which give students hands-on experience of plant disease.

"The appearance of ash dieback in British woodlands should be a wake-up call to the government and industry. New diseases threaten our woodlands and our food crops. Plant pathology education in Britain needs to be revived, to reverse the decline in expertise and to give farmers and foresters better ways of controlling these diseases."

The plant pathology audit finds that British universities have appointed very few plant pathologists in the last 20 years. Many of those who remain are aged over 50. The report attributes the loss of expertise to a shift towards subjects which bring more short-term income into universities.

The report says the position has worsened recently. There has been a long-term decline in plant pathology in many universities but there are now concerns about the long-term viability of the subject in Britain because of the loss of large numbers of plant pathology lecturers at Warwick University and Imperial College, London.

Professor Michael Shaw, from the University of Reading’s School of Agriculture, Policy and Development and President-elect of the BSPP, said, "As globalisation and changes in the climate alter the range of diseases attacking our food crops and our countryside, we must educate specialists who can react to the unexpected and we must not wait until we have lost existing expertise completely. It takes experience and time to become competent."

Professor Murray Grant, a plant pathologist at Exeter University and a member of the Board of the BSPP, commented, "This audit shows the situation is much worse than we imagined. Our world-class research base in plant pathology is threatened. Plant pathology expertise is needed to counter current and emerging threats to the British landscape."

The audit’s findings will make for uncomfortable reading at a time when concern over Chalara ash dieback, a highly aggressive disease, is affecting trees in the UK and the government response to the disease’s spread has been criticised as too slow. Charala ash dieback has been spreading rapidly across Europe in recent years; it has been especially destructive in Denmark, where up to 90 percent of ash trees may be diseased.

The disease appeared in the Britain this year and, although a ban on ash imports has been announced, it came too late, as the fungal disease was discovered in natural woodland across England and Ireland in October 2012.

Professor Brown added, "All areas of plant pathology in Britain are under strain. We are especially worried that there are now very few UK experts left in diseases of trees and vegetables."

The audit can be accessed here