lazy_gardens stated: "The common anti-fungal sprays used on plants are NOT what you would use for a fungal infection of a mammal."

H.Kuska comment: what about the azole plant fungicides? For example:

https://bmcmicrobiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2180-14-155

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The following are azole human fungicides:

https://www.drugs.com/drug-class/azole-antifungals.html

Re: "You know what would minimize the need for fungicides? Genetic engineering to move blight resistance into the plants that need it."

I can't quite tell whether you're serious or not?

I don't think that solving this with genetic engineering is anywhere near that simple and straightforward. What genes are involved? Are they even known? How long would it take to discover them, for each major crop variety? Is there any particular reason to assume that it would be possible, or that it would be any faster or more successful than using traditional breeding? How long would the resistance last before some other fungus took advantage of the situation?

How many of the countless cultivars currently in use would be "engineered"? Will we narrow our crops down to just two or three cultivars for each major crop, thus making us vulnerable to a potato-famine-type situation? Who decides which varieties "win"? What happens when the fungus-resistant varieties are vulnerable to other pests and diseases, or simply refuse to grow in certain conditions?

This is of course without even considering the paperwork and legal hassles of using patented seed. And the fact that patented seed means that any and all improvements in that seed are short-circuited; no breeding allowed.

I hope that you were joking and my rambling above was just one of those silly Internet rants by someone who didn't understand the joke.

I'm not sure lazy_gardens read, or understood, the article.

kimmq is kimmsr

M. Wilson ... with the Crispr technique you can pretty much move any gene into any plant quickly and reliably, or knock out the gene that is the problem. Crispr is awesome. African agriculturalists are doing it to get resistance to a bacterial infection of plantain into the preferred local varieties. Some apple grower is using it to get resistance to browning in cut fruit (basically causing the same mutation that happened to make "golden" raisins not tuen dark brown) into various popular apple cultivars. They could easily do it to protect oranges against the citrus greening disease, except that some people are so freaked out they would rather have no oranges at all instead of oranges with 2 genes from spinach.

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I read the article, including this "A vaccine that could protect against fungal disease has yet to be developed" ... which is flat out wrong. So if they get the basic facts wrong, the rest of the article is suspect. The Guardian is not noted for high quality investigative reporting.

http://tucson.com/news/science/health-med-fit/vaccine-developed-at-ua-could-prevent-valley-fever/article_8e652a2f-484d-54d3-b5a1-77a490b288ed.html 

"When one vaccine was evaluated in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and
proved to be effective in mice and monkeys, hundreds of people signed up
for the human clinical trials."

http://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/valleyfever/valley-fever-vaccine-stalled  (for lack of interest by companies or governments big enpough to scale it up from single lab to production)

lazy_gardens, I could not open either of your 2 Valley Fever links that you provide.

This is a 2015 link:

http://tucson.com/news/science/health-med-fit/vaccine-developed-at-ua-could-prevent-valley-fever/article_8e652a2f-484d-54d3-b5a1-77a490b288ed.html

Please note that it states: "There is no proven way to prevent it other than not visiting or residing in places like Tucson, where the valley fever-causing coccidioides fungus lives."

This is what it states about an earlier attempt:

"Delta-CPS1, as the live vaccine is called, might protect both dogs and humans. And because it can be grown and harvested in a lab, it costs far less than the $40 million assigned to a previous attempt at a valley-fever vaccine that would have used fancy and pricey technology to get the gene out of the fungus and put it in another organism, like a yeast or bacteria, to make a protein antigen."

Since the earlier attempt apparently was not practicable, and the new attempt is still in the development stage, I question your use of the Valley Fever situation as "proof" of the following: ""A vaccine that could protect against fungal disease has yet to be developed" ... which is flat out wrong."

I admit that it would have been more scientifically accurate if the article had stated: " A practicable vaccine that could protect against ........."

https://www.google.com/#newwindow=1&q=practicable

lazy_gardens, your reply to M. Wilson concerning the use of the Crisper technique does not appear to refute many/most of the points that he/she has made.

For example you state: " knock out the gene that is the problem." M. Wilson stated: " What genes are involved? Are they even known? How long would it take to discover them, for each major crop variety? "

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M. Wilson also made the following statement:

"How long would the resistance last before some other fungus took advantage of the situation?"

I would add to that: how long before the fungus mutates to overcome the resistance?

Since I am an amaturer rose hybridizer, I am particular interested in fungi that attack roses such as blackspot.

"The fungus is genetically very diverse and new strains arise rapidly. Unfortunately, this means that the resistance bred into new varieties usually fails to last because new strains of the fungus arise to overcome it."

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=270