Emerging strategies in plant virus disease control: insights from the 56th meeting of the DPG working group “Viruskrankheiten der Pflanzen”

Abstract

Transforming agriculture into a sustainable system includes innovative, safe, and sustainable management of virus diseases. Advances in cutting-edge biotechnological tools, such as CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9), environmental RNA interference (RNAi), and the application of natural antiviral compounds, present promising new strategies for effective virus control. Highly sensitive and validated diagnostic tools allow early detection and targeted management strategies. The 56th meeting of the Deutsche Phytomedizinische Gesellschaft (DPG) working group on "Viruskrankheiten der Pflanzen" tackled the latest developments and challenges in the field of plant virology in Germany, covering topics on genomic technologies, diagnostics and quarantine regulations, virus–host interaction, virus diversity, plant immunity, and more. A special emphasis lay on the applied side of plant virology, as here, pressing agricultural challenges have to be met. In this perspectives paper, we give a summary on the conference’s findings and highlight possibilities to derive novel strategies for disease control.