Joint 18th International Botrytis Symposium & 17th International Sclerotinia Workshop

Three Agropolis Fondation member units (UR0407 Plant Pathology, https://www6.paca.inra.fr/pathologie_vegetale/; UR1115 PSH, https://www6.paca.inra.fr/psh, UMR QUALISUD, http://univ-avignon.fr/recherche/ea-4279-qualisud 1813.kjsp?RH=1455806997945) and UMR1290 Bioger (https://www6.versailles-grignon.inra.fr/bioger) are organising an international congress on the plant pathogenic fungi Botrytis sp. and Sclerotinia sp, entitled ’Botrysclero2020 - Joint 18th International Botrytis Symposium & 17th International Sclerotinia Workshop’ (https://colloque.inra.fr/botrytis-sclerotinia 2020) with the support of the Structure Fédérative de Recherche TERSYS (https://tersys.univ-avignon.fr/, Avignon). This conference will be held in the premises of Avignon University. Conferences on these plant pathogens are organised every three or four years. For Botrytis, the three previous ones were held in Spain (2010), Italy (2013) and Chile (2016). For Sclerotinia the previous three were held in the USA (2009), China (2013) and Brazil (2017).

Botrytis and Sclerotinia fungi are major plant pathogens of many economically important plant crops (grapevine, oilseed rape, sunflower, soybean, vegetable and horticultural crops under shelter, post-harvest fruits and vegetables...). The congress will be an excellent opportunity to show and discuss the latest results on the biology of these plant pathogens, including aspects of genetic diversity, dissemination, evolution, interaction with plants and other biotic agents, through experimental or modelling approaches. The scientific programme gives an important place to studies concerning the functioning of the infected plant, and to the integration of epidemic management methods, which are themes that require multidisciplinary collaboration between scientists. In addition to the scientific community, this meeting should bring together technical institutes and private companies (phytopharmaceutical, seed companies, etc.) confronted with concrete questions related to the effective and sustainable management of these phytopathogenic agents in crops.

Finally, the year 2020 will be the International Year of Plant Health. This UN initiative aims to raise awareness and highlight the importance of plant health for improving food security, protecting the environment and biodiversity, and stimulating economic development. This international conference is fully relevant to IYPH 2020.