A Simple Model Describes Development of Early Peaks in Oomycete Zoospore Inoculum Detected in Southern UK Outdoors Horticultural Reservoirs

The numbers of water-borne oomycete propagules in outdoor reservoirs used in horticultural nurseries within the UK are investigated in this study. Water samples were recovered from 11 different horticultural nurseries in the southern UK during Jan-May in two ‘cool’ years (2010.and 2013; winter temperatures 2.0 and 0.4oC below UK Met Office 30 year winter average respectively) and two ‘warm’ years (2008 and 2012; winter temperatures 1.2 and 0.9oC above UK Met Office 30 year winter average respectively). Samples were analysed for total number of oomycete colony forming units (CFU), predominantly members of the families Saprolegniaceae and Pythiaceae, and these were combined to give monthly mean counts. The numbers of CFU were investigated with respect to prevailing climate in the region: mean monthly air temperatures calculated by using daily observations from the nearest climatological station. The investigations show that the number of CFU during spring can be explained by a linear first-order equation and a statistically significant r2 value of 0.66 with the simple relationship: [CFU] = a(T-Tb )-b, where a is the rate of inoculum development with temperature T, and b is the baseload population at temperatures below Tb. Despite the majority of oomycete CFU detected being non-phytopathogenic members of the Saprolegniaceae, total oomycete CFU counts are still of considerable value as indicators of irrigation water treatment efficacy and cleanliness of storage tanks. The presence/absence of Pythium spp. was also determined for all samples tested, and Pythium CFU were found to be present in the majority, the exceptions all being particularly cold months (January and February 2010 and January 2008). A simple scenario study (+2 deg C) suggests that abundance of water-borne oomycetes during spring could be affected by increased temperatures due to climate change.

Panoramic Sea Happening (After Kantor): Video Installation

Panoramic Sea Happening (After Kantor) is a 7 minute durational film that reimagines part of Tadeusz Kantor's original sea happenings from 1967 in a landscape in which the sea has retreated. The conductor of Kantor’s original performance is replaced with a sound object cast adrift on a beach in Dungeness (UK). The object plays back the sound of the sea into the landscape, which was performed live and then filmed from three distinct angles. The first angle mimics the position of the conductor in Kantor’s original happening, facing outwards into the horizon of the beach and recalls the image in Kantor’s work of a human figure undertaking the absurd task of orchestrating the sound of a gigantic expanse of water. The second angle exposes the machine itself and the large cone that amplifies the sound, reinforcing the isolation of the object. The third angle reveals a decommissioned nuclear power station and sound objects used as a warning system for the power plant. Dungeness is a location where the sea has been retreating from the land, leaving traces of human activity through the disused boat winches, abandoned cabins and the decommissioned nuclear buildings. It is a place in which the footprint of the anthropocene is keenly felt. The sound object is intended to act as an anthropomorphic figure, ghosting the original conductor and offering the sound of the sea back into the landscape through a wide mouthpiece, echoing Kantor’s own load hailer in the original sequence of sea happenings. It speculates on Kantor's theory of the bio-object, which proposed a symbiotic relationship between the human and the nonhuman object in performance, as a possible instrument to access a form of geologic imagination. In this configuration, the human itself is absent, but is evoked through the objects left behind. The sound object, helpless in a red dingy, might be thought of as a co-conspirator with the viewer, enabling a looking back to the past in a landscape of an inevitable future. The work was originally commissioned by the University of Kent in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute for the Symposium Kantorbury Kantorbury in Canterbury (UK) to mark the 100 years since Tadeusz Kantor’s birth (15 - 19 September 2015). It should be projected and requires stereo speakers.