Plant Parasitic Nematodes (PPN) negatively impact all facets of global agriculture, and there is a compelling need to translate basic research on nematode biology to the deployment of strategies to achieve effective control. The Indo-US workshop titled A road map towards effective management of plant-parasitic nematodes by 2025 organized by Umarao (ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi) and David Bird (North Carolina State University, Raleigh) was convened with the ambitious target to develop tools to alleviate at least one half of the yield loss attributable to nematodes by 2025. The workshop brought together a panel of renowned PPN researchers from India and USA to define the challenges that must be overcome to meet this goal. The workshop aimed at evaluating the literature (current and old) to distinguish dogma from data; identifying the best PPN species to exploit, and how realistically one can extrapolate from one species to another; assessing the technologies in hand, and those that are needed; identifying gaps in our basic understanding of PPN biology, and suggesting how we plug those gaps; developing assays to get quickly to the field, ideally using farmer-acceptable crops and cultivars; and, identifying appropriate funding source(s). (Connect Newsletter May 2016 http://www.iusstf.org/cms/gall_content/2016/5/2016_5$PDF109_May_2016_132510500.pdf)
Further research and collaboration is an outcome of this workshop with Dr. David Bird(NC State University) and Dr. Uma Rao (Indian Agricultural Research Institute) continue discussion on the goals and outcomes of the road map.