IPPC 2019: XIX International Plant Protection Congress in Hyderabad, India, attended by Naivy Nava

Our doctoral candidate Naivy Nava attended this year’s International Plant Protection Congress in India, organised at ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. This is one of the main plant protection conferences world-wide, organised every fourth year only and bringing together plant biologist and plant pathologists from many disciplines, both fundamental and application-oriented. This year’s conference was dominated by the ‘fall armyworm’, the larval stage of a tropical and sub-tropical moth that lives as a pest on grasses and cereals, particularly maize. Originally found only in the Americas, it was first reported in Africa in 2016 where it is now widespread, devastating maize harvests, in India in 2018, and in China in 2019. Naivy Nava was invited to present her work on biotechnological approaches for using chito-oligosacharides to control plant-parasitic nematodes in the session on Emerging Pests and Their Management: Nematodes. Her presentation was received very well, and followed by a vivid discussion with the audience. In fact, several researchers from South Africa approached her and expressed their interest to collaborate with us on the use of chitosans against nematodes. So perhaps, this will be an opportunity to revive our collaborations with South Africa which lie dormant since the retirement of our friend and colleague, Prof. Amie van der Westhuizen from the University of the Orange Free State in Bloemfontein.