P-552 - New tools to identify emerging lineages of Phytophthora infestans and track spread.

The risk of the introduction of pathogens into the US with trade requires continued surveillance and improved diagnostic capabilities at our borders. Phytophthora infestans, the causal agent of potato late blight, was responsible for the Irish potato famine and is still a threat to food security globally. USA-Blight (usablight.org) is a disease surveillance and mapping system that has been operative since 2011 and allows users to report disease and alert stakeholders. USA Blight has migrated into the larger Plant Aid Database (Plant-aid.org). The platform shows historic and recent maps of P. infestans outbreaks and genotypes, NPDN reports of P. infestans and P. cubensis sentinel plots. The database can be used to map areas of risk using a Pest and  Pathogen Spread (PoPS) model. A complete T-BAS phylogeny of Phytophthora has been released as a community tool for identification of new emergent species. A T-BAS tree for tracking microsatellite genotypes of P. infestans has also been deployed (https://guide-tbas.cifr.ncsu.edu/tbas). Users can query unknown or new genotypes using the T-BAS tree to identify emerging lineages. We have used sequence-based and microsatellite approaches to track the spread of modern and historic lineages (e.g., FAM-1) of the pathogen. These tools will help us respond to and mitigate outbreaks, improve deployment of host resistance, and inform policy.