European project IPMorama: progress one year after its launch
The first annual meeting of the Horizon Europe IPMorama project was held on 30 and 31 October 2025. IPMorama’s most obvious successes stem from the fact that the project is designed to interact with pre-existing networks and tools (European VSCU network, previous European Rustwatch project, etc.). In this project, GEVES is participating in the common objective of developing integrated pest management focused on the varietal component for wheat rusts (yellow, brown and black rusts) and potato mildew.
During 2025, GEVES was heavily involved in three work packages:
- WP1, in partnership with INRAE Le Moulon, on monitoring the deployment of varietal resistance at European level for diseases affecting common wheat, durum wheat and potatoes. GEVES collected data at European level on disease resistance ratings from registration and post-registration examination offices, as well as deployment data, in order to update INRAE’s European database (DiverCiland) on soft wheat and to participate in the creation of databases on durum wheat and potatoes.
- WP2, in partnership with Aarhus University in Denmark and INRAE BIOGER, on the epidemiological surveillance of new races and virulences of wheat rusts. GEVES has led the development and management of sentinel varieties (differential hosts), distributed in 17 countries, in approximately 80 to 100 VSCU field trials, to alert to the occurrence of new virulences of the three wheat rusts. This management of sentinel varieties in the European VSCU network contributed to the early warning of a new Yr15 virulence for yellow rust detected on the Mariboss sentinel variety (Yr15) in seven countries: UK, FR, BE, NL, CZ, DK, and SE, at 16 sites. This newly named Champion race combines the virulence of the Amboise race, currently predominant in France, with the virulence of Yr15.
- WP3, in partnership with INRAE BIOGER, Agroscope and other partners, is working on establishing a protocol for wheat variety mixtures to improve the sustainability of resistance to yellow and brown rust, with trials to be set up in autumn 2025 and monitored in 2026.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
