Petros Skiadas

Spinach culture has been threatened by downy mildew, which can destroy entire spinach fields and causes extensive economic damage.

To bring resistance breeding of spinach to the next level and contribute to sustainable agriculture, we study spinach downy mildew and its rapid evolution. We aim to identify the genotype that results in the resistance breaking of spinach cultivars. We have sequenced all spinach downy mildew resistance-breaking isolates, developed high-quality genome assemblies, and identified their effectors. With comparative genomics, we aim to understand their evolution, function, and significance for the infection of spinach.