7th International Cereal Nematodes Symposium

Description

The International Cereal Nematodes Symposium (ICNS) is an extension to the International Cereal Nematode Initiative (ICNI) that was established in 2006. It aims to create a critical mass of scientific capacity and skills to deliver sustainable solutions by working at both the practical and theoretical level. It was initially founded as the International Cereal Cyst Nematode Initiative (ICCNI) and later expanded to include all-important genera of cereal nematodes (CN).

Cereal nematodes including both the Cereal Cyst Nematodes (Heterodera spp.; CCN) and the Root Lesion Nematodes (Pratylenchus spp.; RLN) are acknowledged as a global economic problem on wheat production systems in developing as well as in developed countries. Within the framework of the ICWIP (ICARDA CIMMYT Wheat Improvement Program) which relates to wheat improvement research in Central Asia, West Asia and North Africa, CIMMYT and the Turkish Ministry of Food Agriculture and Livestock in collaboration with ICARDA and our National Program partners from developing countries and several research institutions in Australia and Europe have undertaken research over the last 12 years to:

1. Understand the importance and distribution of CCN and RLN, which are widespread in wheat production systems throughout West Asia, North Africa, parts of Central Asia, Northern India and China.

2. Investigate potential control options with a major emphasis on host resistance through validation and integration of resistant sources (traditional and molecular) into wheat germplasm for global wheat production systems (particularly focused on rainfed or supplementary irrigation systems). Rotation has been partially explored.

3. Provide training for scientists from developing countries: The 1st ICCNI was held in Antalya, Turkey and proceedings can be downloaded from the following website: http://www.spipm.cgiar.org/reports. The 2nd workshop was held in Vienna, Austria and the 3rd workshop was held in Adana, Turkey. The 4th workshop was held in Beijing, China. The 5th workshop was held in Ankara Turkey and the proceeding can be downloaded from the following website: http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4934e.pdf. Those workshops were very successful in identifying the global status of the problem of cereal nematodes and forming networks and partnerships to continue working on these problems.

After the immensely successful past meetings, the 7th meeting in the series will be held as an International Symposium on Cereal Nematodes at New Delhi.

Objectives

See Above.