“Strict” Border Restrictions are not enough to curb Pests and Diseases!! Insane as it sounds, that is the reality of things. Pests and Diseases management has been part of scientific discussions since time immemorial with regard to agricultural production systems. With this year’s conference theme, “Agricultural development within the rural-urban continuum”, pest and diseases was not left behind, and this brought great discussion among scientist from all over the globe. Stephan Winter Leibniz-Institute, Braunschweig, Germany Amazing interactions between plant viruses, their vectors and their hosts plants was reported by Stephan Winter, a virologist from Leibniz-Institute, Braunschweig, Germany. According to Winter, plant viruses can travel long distance as far as United State from Africa, to Europe. This has been made possible by international trade of planting materials, vegetables and cut flowers, enabling pests and diseases of economic importance to cross strict boarders. Generally, several driving factors have been found to contribute to this menace, scientist are committed to find solutions for the control and containment of pests and diseases.These include, cultural measures, biological control of the pest, use of tolerant crop varieties against plant diseases among others.

Can they be contained once and for all? This was a question reported by all the presenters asked by farmers from different parts of the globe . DPG Session: Crop biotic stresses. Pests and diseases and their control or their containment in the agricultural systems has been on discussion since time immemorial, with farmers trying all means that are economically viable with regard to their crop in question. Recent concerns also has been on the human health and the environment, bringing the farmers to a dilemma when it comes to creating an equilibrium with regards to high yields versus human health and the environment. Researchers have not been left out in this journey.They have come up with various biological as well as cultural control ideas, breeding of resistant varieties, improvement of farming techniques together with agronomy among others, with the main focus of reducing the use of synthetic chemicals to the minimal. Poster presentation session; Measuring Resistance in Potato to Phytophthora infestans with Field, Laboratory and Greenhouse Assays