Dirt-boot pathology in an international setting: valuable experiences to learn from

There are many challenges to developing effective IDM strategies in both local and overseas environments, but this is a requirement of an applied pathology researcher (or ‘dirt booter’). Disease epidemics have been part and parcel of the Australian sugarcane industry and provide a constant challenge to industry staff. There is a need for ongoing research to minimise the scale of these events and their economic impacts and this has to be both broad and far-reaching. Successful management systems require the judicious use of both traditional and advanced technologies. Activities as diverse as developing assays based on household bleach, to chartering flights to remote parts of PNG, to collecting soil samples for assay from cane fields on exhaustingly hot days, to detailed analyses of spore trap data collected using molecular assays are the types of activities undertaken by a ‘dirt-boot’ sugarcane pathologist. Jogging into a pack of barking dogs in Thailand is a different story.