Botanic Gardens of Sydney - Phytophthora & PhytoGuard®
About
In this presentation, Dr Matthew Laurence (Botanic Gardens of Sydney - PlantClinic) and Sarah Dunstan (EcoPath Solutions) will share results from the Stop the Rot nursery survey, which tested 1,437 trees across six commercial tree nurseries. The study detected 13 Phytophthora species spanning six clades, three novel lineages, and two new Australian biosecurity records—highlighting the scale and complexity of hidden pathogen risk in plant supply chains.These findings led to the development of PhytoGuard®, a next‑generation surveillance and risk‑management platform. PhytoGuard® integrates the proprietary PhytoBait® system with qPCR and sequencing‑based diagnostics to deliver rapid, non‑destructive, field‑deployable testing that can batch‑screen entire plant cohorts, irrigation water, and bulk soils at a fraction of conventional diagnostic costs. In doing so, it directly addresses the scalability, turnaround and species‑capture limitations that have long constrained best‑practice Phytophthora management in agriculture, nurseries, restoration projects, and urban forestry.
The talk will trace the pathway from foundational research and conservation case studies (from World Heritage landscapes to urban forests) through to a commercially viable diagnostic system and will invite academic collaboration to deepen the science underpinning the platform and expand its applications.
Date
Friday 18 September 2026 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM (UTC+10)Location
Community Hub at The Dock - Multipurpose Room
912 Collins Street, Docklands Victoria 3008
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Botanic Gardens of Sydney - Phytophthora & PhytoGuard®
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