WELCOME TO THE PEDRAS LAB HOMEPAGE
Canada Research Chair in Bioorganic and Agricultural Chemistry
Chemical Ecology & Natural Products Chemistry:
Discovering Environmentally Safer and Sustainable Plant Disease Treatments
Despite the extensive use of fungicides, insecticides, and herbicides, plant diseases and pests continue to cause enormous yield losses worldwide. Yet, the increasing demand for food requires substantial increases in the production of staple crops. At the same time, environmental issues stress that sustainable agricultural practices cannot rely on the continuous application of pesticides. For this reason, there is an urgency to fully understand both our agricultural and natural ecosystems. This understanding requires a concerted multidisciplinary effort, which necessitates a chemical and biochemical approach. In particular, application of chemical ecology to understand the multiple chemical interactions among various organisms is central to the discovery of better agricultural practices and indeed universally sustainable crop production.
In our group we are using bioorganic, biochemical and biological techniques to understand economically important diseases of crucifer oilseeds such as canola, rapeseed, and mustard, vegetables such as rutabaga, broccoli, and turnip, and condiments such as mustard and wasabi. In particular, the interaction of crucifers with blackleg, blackspot, root rot, stem rot, and white rust fungi is being investigated (Figure 1). Experimental work combines a wide variety of chemical and biological studies including:
