Wheat initiATive Crop Health Alliance

 

Wheat initiATive Crop Health Alliance – WATCH-A

WATCH-A was established to work towards developing detailed and timely information on wheat disease occurrence and for global monitoring of disease and pest outbreaks.

  • Initiate project based on established national programs for disease and pest diagnosis and monitoring, using common, consistent analysis techniques

  • Provide global access to an expanding database of information, including pathogen, pest and host sequence data.

  • Ensure effective access to data, isolates and screening protocols.

  • Over time, expand monitoring activities to provide a global system.

Vision: Reduce the impact of pests and diseases on wheat production through a global, collaborative framework.

Mission: Our mission is to unite scientists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to collaboratively develop and unify methodologies, to build capacity and share resources to minimise the impact of wheat pests and pathogens.

Regular meeting of WATCH-A Steering Committee and guests began in 2023 with the group meeting every three months.  The focus of current work has been around identifying national programs and data sources that can be used as a base for building a disease and pest monitoring system and assessing the impact of diseases and pests on wheat production.

Workshop announcement!

Find all info for the upcoming Pest and Disease Diagnosis and Monitoring Workshop here: https://www.wheatinitiative.org/new-events/watch-a-workshop-sep2025

Steering Committee

Andreas Stahl, JKI, Germany

Samuel Soubeyrand, INRAE, France

Matt Moscou, ARS, USA

Oswald Crasta, ARS, USA

Diane Saunders, JIC, UK

Scott Duguid, AAFC, Canada

Kar-Chun Tan, Chair Pathogen EWG, Australia

Gia Aradottir, Co-Chair Pest EWG, UK

Wheat Initiative Scientific Board members

Silvia German, Scientific Board Liaison, Uruguay

Fiona Doohan, Scientific Board Liaison, Ireland

Peter Langridge, Scientific Board, Australia