On the 29th of April, VIRTIGATION partner TECNOVA organised a project webinar on the emerging threats posed by Geminiviruses.
Latest results from the VIRTIGATION project on Geminiviruses
This VIRTIGATION webinar brought together 22 participants, including mainly international stakeholders of the VIRTIGATION network. The attendees included growers, researchers, agro-industry and extension services representatives. Due to the power outage in the Iberian Peninsula on this day, many initially registered participants were unable to attend. Moreover, the webinar could not be recorded, as TECNOVA also faced the power outage in its headquarters in Almería, Spain.
The aim of this online event was to inform VIRTIGATION network stakeholders about the emerging threats posed by Geminiviruses such as ToLCNDV, and how to address them with new innovative control strategies. After a brief introduction by Moshe Lapidot from VIRTIGATION partner Volcani Center as moderator, several VIRTIGATION researchers gave presentations outlining the latest project results on Geminiviruses, generating many follow-up questions from the audience.
Interactions between Geminiviruses and their whitefly vectors
In the first presentation of the webinar, Alessia Farina from the University of Catania highlighted how genetically-based or chemically induced plant tolerance could help IPM efforts against whiteflies as vectors of devastating Geminiviruses such as ToLCNDV. Building on her intervention, Kumar Vasudevan from VIRTIGATION coordinator KU Leuven then reported on the project’s field trials for controlling the Bemisia tabaci whitefly with novel IPM-compatible biopesticide formulations.
The threat of ToLCNDV & how to counter it
Maruthi Gowda from the Natural Resources Institute – University of Greenwich then presented a brief history of ToLCNDV. Gowda detailed its starting point in India, its successful host-jump from tomato to cucurbits in Europe, and its increasing threat to crop production worldwide. He further outlined strategies needed to stop its rapid spread, including measures such as targeted seed testing.
The VIRTIGATION webinar then concluded with an intervention by Dan Rustia from Wageningen University & Research (WUR) on the topic of AI-assisted phenotyping for fast and objective plant-insect resistance testing. Rustia thereby focused on WUR’s Eggsplorer software tool, which innovates whitefly counting & determination of plant-insect resistance in a quick and efficient manner.
More on the topic of Geminiviruses:
- Presentations of the speakers in the VIRTIGATION Zenodo community
