Citizen scientists help research into ‘slug resistant’ wheat
Scientists are making strides towards understanding which types of wheat can resist slugs with the help of a keen community of ‘Slug Scout’ citizen scientists.
Their work is paving the way for sustainable pest control methods that could benefit both farmers and the environment.
It is part of the SLIMERS project – Strategies Leading to Improved Management and Enhanced Resilience to Slugs – a £2.6m initiative involving multiple partners, including the John Innes Centre, Harper Adams University, UK Agri-Tech Centre, Agrivation and led by the British On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN).
The project builds on previous findings from the John Innes Centre’s Watkins collection of landrace wheat, which identified ‘Watkins 788’ as a promising candidate for slug resistance after tests showed that slugs consistently preferred other wheat types.
To explore this further, the centre’s wheat genetics team, led by Dr Simon Griffiths, created 77 Recombinant Inbred Lines (RILs) by crossing Watkins 788 with another susceptible wheat variety. These RILs have now been tested to pinpoint the specific genes that may be responsible for slug resistance – with help from BOFIN’s community of volunteer ‘Slug Scouts’.
These Slug Scouts, including farmers and members of the public, collect grey field slugs (Deroceras reticulatum) from their local areas and send them to the John Innes Centre for use in the feeding trials. Since the start of the project 4,647 slugs have been received, with 2,684 being the grey field slug needed for the study.
Feeding trials
Dr Victor Soria-Carrasco, Head of Entomology and Insectary Platform at the John Innes Centre leads the feeding trials. Slugs of the right size are placed with various wheat seeds to assess their feeding preferences and the resulting damage. By measuring the fraction of each seed consumed after exposure to slugs, his team can determine which wheat lines are most and least appealing to slugs. This data can then be used to help identify the gene or genes associated with slug resistance.
As part of the next phase, two RILs – one resistant and one susceptible – along with Watkins 788, will be grown and tested on farms during the 2024-2025 growing season. Six ‘Slug Sleuth’ farmers have committed to run these trials on their farms, gathering data to assess the effectiveness of the RILs in real-world conditions.
Tom Allen-Stevens, founder of BOFIN, said the input from Slug Scouts was vital for the project’s success.
“Slugs are a major pest for UK arable farmers. The ultimate goal of this part of the project is to find wheat lines that slugs avoid, reducing our reliance on chemical controls. Farmers will now be trialling some of these wheats to compare them with those they would typically grow on farm, but the scientists will continue their work in the lab.
“We are so grateful to our community of Slug Scouts and hope they will continue to find, identify and send in grey field slugs so we can carry on this important work.”