Objectives

Reducing pesticide use and chemical control in general and their well-described negative impacts on the environment and human health is at the very base of this proposal. The general objective of VIROPLANT is to study and propose integrated biocontrol strategies, which are, beside host resistance, the most accepted alternative to the use of pesticide. VIROPLANT will provide new tools to be used in integrated disease and integrated pest management (IDM and IPM) for conventional, integrated and organic farming. These tools and strategies are based on the use of natural microorganisms (in particular Viruses) and are compatible with traditional biocontrol approaches.