DrMumta Chhetri

Dr Mumta Chhetri's primary interest lies in understanding plant diseases, resistance mechanisms, and interactions between pathogens and their hosts to promote sustainable and resilient agricultural systems. She conducts National surveys and surveillance of cereal rust samples collected across Australia for race analysis and to determine their virulence or avirulence for rust disease-resistant genes. Her focus is on understanding host-pathogen interactions and developing diagnostic tools for emerging virulent rust pathotypes. She is also involved in conducting fungicide insensitivity testing on rust isolates from representative isolates from pathogenicity surveys of cereal rust pathogens. In a significant finding from 2021, her testing revealed the presence of fungicide-insensitivity of the barley leaf rust pathogen Puccinia hordei, wheat leaf rust pathogen Puccinia triticina and Barley grass stripe rust.