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8th Online Seminar: vegetable viruses and cereal aphids

The CONNECTED Online Seminar Series continues with some great talks focusing on vegetables and cereal crops.

Join us on Thursday 22nd September at 10.30am (GMT+1)

We welcome two new speakers for a fascinating event, with talks as follows:

 Diagnosis and identification of virus diseases on vegetables 

Dr Wubetu Bihon Legesse, World Vegetable Center, Ethiopia 

Wubetu Bihon Legesse is an Ethiopian working for the World Vegetable Center, Eastern and Southern Africa based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as a plant pathologist and Liaison Officer. Before he moved to Ethiopia two years ago, he has been working in Bamako, Mali for the WorldVeg. Prior to joining the World Vegetable Center, he worked as a researcher – plant pathologist at the South African Agricultural Research Council (ARC) vegetables and ornamental plants institute as well as being a post-doc fellow at the Pretoria University, Forestry & Biotechnology Institute (FABI). He has experience in diagnosis, identification and population genetics of plant diseases. Wubetu holds a PhD in plant pathology from the Pretoria University, South Africa.

Developing sustainable approaches to the management of aphid BYDV vectors in cereals 

Dr Tom Pope, Harper Adams University, UK 

Tom Pope is Reader in Entomology and Integrated Pest Management at Harper Adams University in the UK. He has over twenty years of experience of entomology research with specific expertise in Integrated Pest Management (IPM), insect behaviour, plant-insect interactions and biological control. Detailed knowledge of aphid biology and approaches to the sustainable management of these pests within IPM programmes. He manages industry and government funded research projects and is currently director of studies for six PhD students and co-supervises four PhD students working in these areas of crop protection. Dr Pope also supervises a wide range of MPhil, MRes, MSc and BSc student projects as well as lecturing in entomology and IPM on MSc course modules as well as short courses, including BASIS at Harper Adams.


Each talk will be approximately 20 minutes, followed by time for questions. There will also be time at the end for networking.

To join the seminar

The zoom link is available for CONNECTED Members here.