In our recent social media series #Isolateoftheweek Sophie Lane, CHAP’s National Reference Collection Technician at CABI, shared her favourite microorganism isolates, from the collection. The series spanned five weeks, with each week focusing on a different isolate. Throughout the series, Sophie explained why the isolates she chose were important to the UK crop protection industry.

For week two, Sophie selected Aspergillus clavatus. This fungus forms distinctive club-shaped vesicles, from which spores are released.

Aspergillus clavatus has a range of beneficial applications in the medical and agricultural fields – it produces novel antifungal peptides and also parasitizes Fusarium solani in potatoes and legumes.

On the flip side, it’s also a spoilage organism with toxigenic properties, commonly found in cereals including malting barley.

Week four highlighted Metarhizium anisopliae, an entomopathogenic fungus that utilises a parasitoid strategy, with well-known biopesticide applications.

It is a natural enemy of a variety of pest insects including:

The highly invasive Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis capitata), the lesser known small brown planthopper (Laodelphax striatellus) which targets wheat crops and the notorious migratory locust (Locusta migratoria)

Sophie Lane is the National Reference Collection technician, based with CHAP partner CABI.

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