Submission Form for including your FP6 project information in the EPSO online FP6 project finder

FP6 Priority: 5 – Food Quality and Safety

Projects Acronym: 2E-BCAs in Crops

Start and Ending date: 01.01.2004 – 31.12.2006

Budget: 2.3 Million EURO

Name Coordinator: Maurizio Vurro

Full Address: Istituto Scienze Produzioni Alimentari, CNR, Via Amendola 122/O

70125 Bari - Italy

Phone: +39.080.5929331; fax: +39.080.5929374; e-mail: maurizio.vurroispa.cnr.it

Full Title: Enhancement and Exploitation of Soil Biocontrol Agents for Bio-Constraint Management in Crops

Contract number: FOOD-CT-2003-001687

STREP

In the last years increasing difficulties have appeared in vegetable crops to manage some diseases, such as those caused by Sclerotinia, Fusarium or Pythium spp., or some noxious plants, such as parasitic and perennial weeds. This is in part due to the lack of available efficacious control methods, to the ban of some chemicals, and to the prohibition of their use in organic farming. The use of biocontrol agents, although widely considered a very promising strategy of disease and weed management at the soil level, has still a limited application at the European level, due to the limited efficacy of the microbes and to the lack of knowledge for their best use. The main aim of the project is to study some of the already available or the most promising biocontrol microorganisms (such as Fusarium, Trichoderma or Coniothyrium sp.), using a combination of strategies. By studying the genetic and physiological enhancement strategies, the ecological fitness of the agents, the production, formulation and application methods, the integration with other organisms and with control methods, and assessing their quality and the risk of release into the environment, it will be possible to improve the efficacy of fungal biocontrol agents, allowing their wider use at the European level, and giving new important tools to support the production of safer and healthier foods.

Partner 1(coordinator):

Institute of Science of Food Production (ISPA), National Council of Research, Via Amendola 122/O, 70125   BARI, ITALY

Partner 2

INRA, UMR Microbiologie Geochimie des Sols, BP 86510, 21065 Dijon Cedex, FRANCE

Partner 3

IMaGO s.r.l., Via Pian degli Alberi 26, 16042  Carasco (GE), ITALY

Partner 4

Plant Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot IL76100, ISRAEL

Partner 5

University of Naples, Department of Arboricolture, Botany and Plant Pathology, Section of Plant Pathology

Via Università, 100 - 80055 Portici (NA), ITALY

Partner 6

Norwegian Crop Research Institute, Plant Protection Centre, Høgskoleveien 7, N-1432 Ås, NORWAY

Partner 7

Horticulture Research International, Wellesbourne, Warwick, CV35 9EF, U. K.

Partner 8

Prophyta Biologischer Pflanzenschutz GmbH, Inselstrasse 12, Malchow, GERMANY

Partner 9

All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Protection, Shausee Podbelskogo, 3, Saint-Petersburg, Pushkin

196608 Russia

Projects Web Link: http://www.2E-BCAs.org

This Form was completed by – Name: Maurizio Vurro

Affiliation to the project: coordinator

Submission Date of this form: 02.03.2005