Consortium meeting on CaLsol pathosystem held at ICA-CSIC in Madrid

A meeting about the ‘Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum’ (CaLsol) related activities included in POnTE project was held in Madrid, at the ICA-CSIC headquarter, on 17-18 May, 2016. A total of 21 researchers from 11 partner institutions and 5 different countries participated in the meeting.

The meeting included partners from stakeholders as well as academic institutions. The aims were to clarify common goals, milestones and deliverables, to propose a working frame of activities to be conducted during the next 4 years on this pathosystem.

After an introduction of the state of the art, the participants considered more closely the work plans for 2016 on CaLsol related activities included in WP2 (Biology and pathogenesis), WP3 (Genotyping and genetic structure of the pathogen populations), WP5 (Vector pathogen identification and disease epidemiology), WP6 (Field and automated surveillance systems for vector and disease monitoring), WP8 (Plant disease risk assessment and support for plant health) and WP9 (Integrated disease management and mitigation strategies).
Each WP leader presented the tasks and activities that are being conducted and the experiments that will be done in this first year of the project. The communication between the different work packages targeting this pathosystem, was also strengthened, because especially WP8 utilizes the data produced by other WPs.

On May, 18 there was a separate meeting held for WP4 (Implementation and validation of diagnostic kits for early and rapid detection of target pathogens in host plants and vectors), with 11 participants from 5 institutions. Coordination and distribution of work in different subtasks were discussed and the deadlines for subtasks were set.
Both meetings were excellently organized by Prof. Fereres and Dr. Moreno from ICA-CSIC Partner.