Satellite Events

The satellite events glance will give you an overview of the Satellite Events programme.

If you wish to register to one or several Satellite Events, follow this link

The 4th European conference on Xylella fastidiosa is organised by EFSA with the active contribution of the major EU and transnational research initiatives tackling X. fastidiosa –  BeXyl, BIOVEXO, ERC MultiX and EUPHRESCO. The conference is chaired by Blanca B. Landa, who is coordinating the EU funded project BeXyl (Beyond Xylella), and Giuseppe Stancanelli, who is leading the Plant Health Risk Assessment team at EFSA. The Scientific Committee includes scientists from all the partner organisations and external reviewers. 

The presentations and discussions will take stock of the results from research that has taken place since X. fastidiosa was first detected in Europe in 2013. During this last decade, two major research projects [1] funded by the European Union have filled knowledge gaps on the distinctive elements of the outbreaks, consolidated a resilient network for monitoring and testing, and achieved results that have supported and influenced the activities of researchers, stakeholders and policy makers. The programme of the 4th European conference will reflect the progresses of the multidisciplinary research conducted and will discuss the scientific approaches to develop and test practical and applicable solutions for control and sustainable management of Xylella fastidiosa outbreaks in the EU.

The conference sessions and discussions will cover the latest findings, data and knowledge on X. fastidiosa, including: 

• Pathogen biology, ecology and genetics;
• Epidemiology and modelling of X. fastidiosa diseases;
• Host plant-interactions and resistant/tolerant plant germplasm;
• Surveillance and early detection tools;
• Vectors biology and sustainable control strategies;
• Endophytic microbial resources for X. fastidiosa control;
• Sustainable and integrated pest and disease management strategies for prevention and reduction of the impact of X. fastidiosa diseases.

[1] POnTE

XF Actors 

REGISTRATION AND CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Researchers on Xylella-related topics are invited to register and to submit an abstract for oral or poster presentation. There is no registration fee for the conference.

The Scientific Committee will accept a maximum of 300 participants. Please note that if the maximum number of participants is reached, priority will be given to participants with an active role and to ensure a geographical, gender and institutional balance.
Abstracts for oral or poster presentation for the 4th European conference on Xylella fastidiosa can be submitted on the ICPP2023 website at https://www.icpp2023.org/call-abstract. 

Registration for participation will open on Monday 6 March 2023 on EFSA website HERE and will close on 12 April 2023. Confirmation of acceptance will be sent by mid-April 2023. 
The final programme will be published at a later stage on this page.

YOUNG RESEARCHERS’ INITIATIVE

EFSA will support travel and accommodation of a certain number of early career investigators/plant health professionals.
To be considered for this initiative, early-career researchers/plant health professionals must:

• be a presenter of an accepted e-poster presentation;
• be a PhD student or an early career investigator/plant health professional (i.e. someone who has obtained their PhD/doctorate (full-time equivalent) within the past eight years);
• be affiliated to a public institute or higher education institute;

Should you have any questions related to the content or organisation of the 4th European Conference on Xylella fastidiosa please contact us at Xylella_conference@efsa.europa.eu

The European Union Reference Laboratory (EURL) for pests of plants on bacteria was established in 2019. This is an European Union initiative that aims to achieve an overall high level of diagnostics in bacteriology at National Reference Laboratories, primarily across the Member States. The main EURL activities encompass the organisation of proficiency tests (PT) in order to assess the diagnostic competence of the laboratories. Additionally, test performance studies (TPS) and studies to evaluate the suitability of critical reagents in diagnostic tests are annually included. The focus of the EURL activities is on bacteria belonging to the EU priority pests or listed as EU quarantine pests, including Xylella fastidiosa, Ralstonia solanacearum species complex, Xanthomonas citri pv. citri and ‘Candidatus Liberibacter’ on Citrus, Curtobacterium flaccumbaciens pv flaccumfaciens, Pantoae stewartii subsp. stewartii etc.

The 5th EURL Workshop aims to address several current issues and recent developments in the field of plant bacteriology, with the focus on taxonomy and diagnostics. Additionally, during this Workshop the activities and results obtained in TPSs and PTs between September 2022-August 2023 will be presented and the priorities to be given in the Work Program 2024-2025 will be highlighted. Should you have any questions related to the content of the 5th Annual EURL Workshop for Pests of Plants on Bacteria or administrative/practical issues please contact the EURL Bacteriology at EURL-Bacteriology@nvwa.nl.

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Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB) caused by Tropical Race 4 is a major threat to banana production. The commonest Cavendish banana varieties are very susceptible to this pathogen. The satellite comprises sessions that address the current distribution and impact of FWB, the biology of the causal fungi, novel control methods from quarantine strategies to gene silencing, new approaches in genetics, genomics and breeding, and an update on GM strategies. The final session underscores the importance of global alliances and partnerships. The meeting is followed by a social event and a dinner sponsored by Chiquita. 

The Global Plant Health Assessment (GPHA) is a large, global, collective, and volunteer-based effort to assemble information on plant health and disease impacts on ecosystem services. The effort is international, distributed across countries and institutions, and disciplinary specialisations. It aims to be both scientific and inclusive. The project aims to assemble the largest, most diverse possible information on the state of plant health in the biosphere, its consequences for the performance of plant systems, and their effects on human activities. The GPHA also considers the feedback loop of human activities on plant health. These multiple effects can be quantitative and qualitative. The GPHA considers all plant-based systems, including forests, agriculture, and urban systems, including urban forests, periurban agriculture, and household gardens. The approach is based on identifying tractable entities through [Ecoregion Å~ Plant System] combinations. The project has thus far mobilised over 80 scientists over two years, focusing on specific plant systems across many ecoregions of the world. Many of these scientists also contributed to coordinating the project and its scientific secretariat. The GPHA is an unusual example of a scientific collective working towards a common good – improving plant health on a global scale.

This workshop will allow the GPHA and the larger community to discuss and decide on further steps for the project. These steps will involve elements of conclusions, recommendations, and perspectives. Perspectives can be according to research, education, and policy. Specifically, the workshop will aim to identify organisation and timeline (1) to produce and disseminate conclusions and recommendations from the GPHA results and (2) for future activities within the GPHA project.

This workshop will identify and explore the diversity of culture collections and how they are being used to improve plant health. Living microbial collections can play a pivotal role in untangling community level interactions and contribute basic knowledge that can be translated in real world solutions. Workshop presentations will discuss proper maintenance and curation, successful strategies and tools to further plant health research and identify critical research areas: increasing plant growth within changing environments, disease diagnostics, reducing biotic and abiotic stresses, and microbiome manipulation. The fundamental knowledge gained with this session will support and enhance efforts that are underway to broaden and strengthen U.S. and European collection communities and their networks.

High-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies have revolutionised plant virus research and diagnostics by accelerating the discovery of new viruses and by providing a sensitive untargeted approach for the detection of viruses. The latter, together with high data-generation potential of HTS, enables discovery of new and emerging viruses from diverse hosts, archived or ancient samples, and untargeted virus detection in diverse matrices, as well as research on a broad range of topics, such as plant virus epidemiology, diversity and evolution. Many new plant virus discoveries, increased availability of sequence data, and a lagging biological characterisation of HTS-based findings call for a broad consideration on harmonisation of sequencing and data analysis approaches, as well as the interpretation of the results from the scientific and regulatory perspective. During this satellite meeting, different aspects of applying HTS in plant virology will be addressed and discussed. Topics will include: discovery and detection of new and emerging viruses; virus diversity, epidemiology, and evolution studies; development of virus detection and identification protocols and validation of HTS-based tests for plant virus diagnostics.

This satellite meeting aims to foster links between the communities of researchers modelling plant disease and those interested in remote sensing. Indeed, the latter do not tend to have a background in disease modelling while the former are sometimes skilled data scientists but, typically, have limited understanding of the opportunities and challenges involved in interpreting remotely sensed information. Bringing these two communities together will clearly stimulate further developments in both fields. A more concrete focus will be on how remote sensing approaches can contribute to an enduring preoccupation of disease modellers, calculating the basic reproduction number, R0.

Oomycetes are a group of filamentous eukaryotic microorganisms widely present in natural environments, some of them including the main pathogenic species for plants, algae and animals. This international workshop will be devoted to the presentation of the most recent research on these organisms, aiming in particular at developing new control methods to limit their impact on agriculture and natural environments.

The workshop will include sessions devoted to molecular mechanisms of oomycete pathogenicity, host resistance, evolution and population genomics, and innovations in control.

Pectobacteriaceae __ are well-known plant pathogenic bacteria that cause soft rot symptoms in a large spectrum of plants worldwide. Recently, symbionts of insects and nematodes, have been discovered classified within the family of Pectobacteriaceae. The plant pathogens belong mainly to the genera Pectobacterium and Dickeya while the symbionts have been associated with the recently described Symbiopectobacterium genus.

This conference aims to bring together specialists working on Pectobacteriaceae to discuss recent advances and future research on the following topics: Detection; Crop protection and resistance; Ecology, infection dynamics and reservoir; Molecular interaction: with the plant, the insect, the nematode and the environment. 

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Having healthy plants is key to providing food security for the 9.8 billion people expected by 2050. But crops are facing many challenges, among them climate change and an increased exposure to biotic and abiotic stressors, such as pests, poor soil quality, low water availability and excessive heat. In order to make agriculture more productive and sustainable, we need to study plants in their biological, physical and environmental contexts, i.e. the “Phytobiome”. Phytobiomes research – a new, cross-cutting, multidisciplinary, holistic approach – focuses on the complex interactions between plants, microorganisms, soils, climate, environment, and management practices. In this workshop, we will showcase examples on how phytobiomes science can provide solutions to produce healthy plants to ensure food security for future generations.

Healthy seeds maximize chances for healthy plants and good harvests, particularly for vegetables as any damage leads to reduced yield and fruit marketability. Vegetable seed industry is active through the International Seed Health Initiative (ISHI), driven by the International Seed Federation (ISF) for developing and validating standard protocols for disease detection. Recent molecular techniques development helped hastening tests and increased sensitivity. Result biological relevance needs to be kept in mind as detection of pathogen particles does not necessarily lead to expressed diseases. Overview of ISF, ISHI and main methods will be presented here. A roundtable on topics like biological relevance, seed transmission and sensitivity of detection methods is part of the program.

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Powdery mildew fungi (Erysiphaceae) are common obligate biotrophic pathogens of over 10,000 plant species. Some cause economically important diseases of many agricultural and horticultural crops. Currently, there are more than 30 genome assemblies available from over 15 species representing eight powdery mildew genera. The Symposium will focus on the use of these genomic resources and other molecular data to better understand the identification, phylogeny, evolution, and host range expansions of powdery mildew fungi, and their interactions with host plant tissues at molecular level.

Rice is an important staple crop and critical for global food security. Both endemic and emerging pathogens greatly affect rice production and cause huge yield losses. This workshop aims at gathering people involved in research on rice pathogens and on their interactions with their host plant, and on developing control methods of rice diseases. It will provide a unique opportunity to get a worldwide overview of current rice diseases, gain information on emerging diseases, update knowledge in cutting-edge research topics and establish collaborations with a large community.

Transposon-sequencing (Tn-Seq) emerged as a powerful molecular approach to investigate behavior of plant pathogens and symbionts along host colonization processes. This workshop will illustrate different ways to use Tn-Seq and the strengths and limits of the Tn-mutant screening approach in microbes, including bacteria and eucaryotes.

2.00 p.m. Welcome
2.05 p.m. - 2.45 p.m. Adam Deutschbauer: Large-scale application of barcoded Tn-seq to identify bacterial genes required for plant colonization.
2.45 p.m. – 3.10 p.m. Alice Boulanger: the making of a pathogen: how Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris adapts to plant environments
3.10 p.m. – 3.35 p.m. Marta Torres Bejar: Identification of bacterial plant colonization genes at the genome scale.
3.35 p.m. – 4.00 p.m. Denis Faure : Tn-seq highlights versatile lifestyle of plant pathogens.
4.00 p.m. – 4.30 p.m. Coffee break

Ralstonia solanacearum is one of the most destructive bacterial plant pathogens worldwide, causing bacterial wilt and major crop losses, especially in the solanaceous plant family. While a solid understanding of the molecular interactions between the pathogen and crop plants have been established, these interactions are poorly understood in more complex rhizosphere microbiomes. Moreover, while increasing evidence suggests that plant-pathogen interactions can evolve rapidly, this is seldom recognised in the context of plant pathogen control.

In this session, we will bring together experts from microbiome research, systems biology, plant pathology, experimental evolution and plant pathogen biocontrol to build a multidisciplinary view of the ecology and evolution of R. solanacearum in rhizosphere microbiomes. We aim to produce a holistic summary of how ecological and evolutionary information could be harnessed for bacterial wilt biocontrol and to identify key environmental drivers associated with disease outbreaks. We also welcome researchers interested in the R. solanacearum pangenome to better understand its genetic diversity in space and time.

The satellite event will be accompanied by a special issue on the topic for example in FEMS Microbiology Ecology edited by Ville Friman (current Editor) and other organizers.

Writing grants can be very challenging for starters to figure out, and it is a competence that many do not have an  opportunity  to  learn  while  in  graduate  school.  This  workshop  will  be  particularly  beneficial  to  early  careerprofessionals  and  graduate  students.  Areas  to  be  covered  will include  but  not  limited  to  good  grantsmanship, international   opportunities,   logic   models,   impact   statements,   effective   communication   of   content   and communication of outcomes of winning proposals. At the end of the workshop, participants are expected to be more  knowledgeable  on:  how  to  find  the  appropriate  grants  to  apply  to,  how  to  use  logic  model  to  develop  a blueprint for grant proposals, how to tell a good story, components to a successful proposal, efficient budgetingand  project  evaluation/management  tools.  This  workshop  will  involve  lots  of  creative  activities  like  using  the GOPP to create a proposal concept, writing impact statements, filling in NIFA/NSF, INRAE, and EAFRD budget forms.

Agenda/Speakers:

08:30 - 09:30 AM - Grant application basics, Logic model development, Filling in budget forms and preparing budget narratives, Gantt charts and Impact statements; alongside interactive (group or individual) activities Dr. Annemiek Schilder, Director of UCCE Ventura County/Hansen Agricultural REC, Ventura, CA, USA. Also a former Associate Professor in Small Fruit Pathology at Michigan State University and Scientist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA; a CGIAR Centre) in Ibadan, Nigeria

09:30 - 10:30 - International Grant Proposals

Dr. Lava Kumar, Virologist/Head of Germplasm Health Unit, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria

10:30 - 11:00 - Break

11:00 - 12:00 - Winning Grant Research Proposals: US and ERC Perspectives
Dr. Ashley Shade, Director of Research, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France. NSF CAREER Awardee and an ERC Consolidator Awardee. Lead project funding in the past from the US Department of Agriculture, the US Department of Energy, and the US National Science Foundation, as well as from a private foundation for a competitive post-doctoral fellowship (US - The Life Sciences Research Foundation) 

12:00 - 13:00 - How to Get Excellent Research Proposals Written
Dr. Dilantha Fernando, Fellow of the APS, Dean of Studies, St. Paul's College, University of Manitoba/ Professor, Dept. of Plant Science, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. He is the Senior Editor of BSPP’s Plant Pathology and the Editor-in Chief of Plants.