Guidelines for sending powdery mildews

1. Locate powdery mildew on plant host.
2. Prune off several whole leaves (fig. 1).
3. Put the fresh leaves in a slightly inflated sealed bag (fig. 2).
4. Send to:

…along with the postcode/grid reference/GPS of where the sample was found, your email address and the name of the host plant. Photos of the plant are also happily received!

5. We will email you when results are available. This may take several weeks.

Figure 1: Please try to pick a significant portion of the infected plant: an entire leaf (such as that of this Geranium sp.) or shoot (like this Myosotis arvensis (Field Forget-me-not)) is best.

I will record the appearance of your fungi, and then pulverise a small part of it to analyse its DNA. Once identified your sample will be added to a national powdery mildew database and you will be sent a link to the relevant record.

Figure 2: Adding fresh leaves to a ‘slightly inflated bag’ will help to preserve the sample.

This information will help to form a more complete picture of powdery mildew presence in the UK and to develop cutting-edge, molecular identification techniques.

Many thanks to all!