In October 2023 I embarked on a journey across Spain to meet with some collaborators and the industry partner of my PhD project, G’s España.

I started in Madrid, where I spent 10 days visiting the lab of Professor Daniel Palmero Llamas and his research team at University of Madrid (UPM). We discussed methods for quantifying Fusarium species in soil samples and I was taught classic morphological identification of Fusarium species using microscopy. Daniel gave me a guided tour of the facilities at UPM and the nearby national crop research centre.

I then drove south, 456km to Cartagena, Murcia. This was daunting, I had never driven abroad before so didn’t know what to expect, but this was surprisingly easy once I got used to everything being mirrored; I expect this was due to the hire car, much less confusing than if I was in my own car on the wrong side of the road.

I arrived in Cartagena and visited one of the farms used by G’s España primarily for celery production. I assessed the fields for symptoms of Fusarium wilt and took some samples of diseased plants. The celery had some pink staining in the leaves that I suspected to be caused by candidatus phytoplasma australiense which they had previously dealt with on a different crop.

The next day, I visited Clara to discuss my research on Fusarium wilt of Lettuce and my results so far, their solarization filed trials and to visit the lettuce farms. we spoke about the best ways to approach current disease control practices and how to prevent another large, unexpected crop loss in the high elevation farms which were previously unaffected by the disease.

This trip was a great experience, I very much enjoyed spending some time in person with the people I work in collaboration with and driving round the Spanish countryside, plus it was lovely and warm.

Emily Turner, PhD Student

Lettuce harvesting in Spain

Fusarium infected lettuce