Potato late blight: improved varieties and the CO-FREE approach.

Описание: CO-FREE presented at EXPO 2015, Milano: On a one-day event organized by the European Commission (EC) the EU-funded project CO-FREE (acronym for "Innovative strategies for copper-free low input and organic farming systems") was presented at the EXPO EU-pavillon in Milano. CO-FREE aims at copper reduction in organic and low-input agriculture, where copper based products are used for control of downy mildews and other important diseases. Dr. Annegret Schmitt (coordinator, JKI, Germany) talked about aims and preliminary results from the project.

From a total of 25 projects funded under the 7th framework program of the EC in the area of Plant Health and Plant Protection, CO-FREE together with five other projects was chosen for oral presentation at the event. The EC hosted the day under the title „Health Checks and Smart Treatments for Our Plants“. Presentations were life-streamed (http://ec.europa.eu/research/conferen....

In a kind of mini-fair, in the afternoon, tangible outputs of the projects were presented. For CO-FREE, the topic of robust potato varieties with resistance to late blight, and strategies to foster consumer acceptance of new varieties was highlighted. The presentation was done jointly with Dr. Lucius Tamm (deputy coordinator, FiBL, Switzerland). Besides information material on the topic, a short video was shown at the stand, which was produced under the lead of Louis Bolk Institute (The Netherlands) and INRA (France). This is the extended version of the video.