On Friday, 20 June, we were honored to host Dr. Jennifer Luangsa-ard, a senior researcher at the National Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (BIOTEC), the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Thailand. Dr. Luangsa-ard has been leading the Plant-Microbe Interaction Laboratory at BIOTEC since 2004. Her team focuses on the biodiversity and application of tropical fungi, especially from Thailand. Additionally, they focus on entomopathogenic fungi and edible mushrooms, which have strong potential for use in sustainable agriculture and plant protection.

Dr. Ute Katharina Vogler, Head of the Institute for Plant Protection in Horticulture and Urban Green, and Dr. Maria Pimenta Lange, Deputy Head, welcomed Dr. Luangsa-ard and PhD candidate Sarunyou Wongkanoun. The visit concluded with a tour of our laboratory and greenhouse research facilities. 

Here, ongoing research focussing on microorganisms that can either benefit or harm horticultural crop plants like tomato plants were presented - especially the harmful pathogen leaf mold Fulvia fulva (syn. Cladosporium fulvum, Passalora fulva). This fungus leads to significant economic losses in tomato greenhouse-organic farming in Germany every year. As the resistance breakthroughs of pathogens increases, so does the urgency to discover effective biological control agents. In the project “Alternative resistances and strategies against leaf diseases in organic tomato breeding”, supported by the Bundesprogramm Ökologischer Landbau (BÖL), project leader Dr. Monika Götz and Post-doc Dr. Benjarong Karbowy-Thongbai and team aim to identify newly emerging races of F. fulva and to find microorganisms that can help controling plant diseases. 

During a brief meeting both institutions exchanged about shared research interest in exploring hidden microorganisms for biological plant protection. This marks a promising step toward future collaboration, with the shared goal of applying novel fungal biocontrol agents in sustainable agriculture.