| During the last years, the Department of Plant Pathology and Immunology coordinated or participated in several research projects. Current research programs are focused on developing sustainable approaches to control a wide range of soilborne and airborne diseases in various cereal, flower, fruit and vegetable crops. The management strategies being developed are based on environmentally friendly alternatives to soil disinfestation, improvement of soil ecosystems' suppression of multiple oomycete and fungal pathogens and diseases. Research objectives cover a variety of topics with emphasis on development of IPM programs largely dependent on specific biological control agents, soil amendments aimed at encouraging indigenous biocontrol organisms, different cultural control practices and enhanced varietal resistance to pathogens. Methods for bioremediation of soils contaminated with heavy metals and mathematical modelling of biological processes in plant and soil ecosystems are developed. The staff members provide production sectors with disease diagnostics and advisory services.
Scientific staff:
Tzenko Dimitrov Vatchev
Assistant Professor, Ph.D.
Head of Department of Plant Pathology and Immunology
tz.vatchev@ppi-bg.org
Dr Vatchev has coordinated and participated in several research projects
focused on the control of a wide range of soilborne diseases or disease
complexes in various cereal, flower, and vegetable crops. The management
strategies being developed are based on environmentally friendly alternatives
to soil disinfestation, improvement of soil ecosystem’s suppression
of causal fungal or nematode organisms and diseases they incite, biological
control with specific agents, organic amendments, cultural control
practices and enhanced varietal resistance to the pathogens.
Svetla Nedelcheva Maneva
Associate Professor, Ph.D.
s.maneva@ppi-bg.org
• Computer models working in real time for prediction of apearance,
severity and incidence of plant diseases on the base of agrometeorological
parameters;
• Mathematical modeling of processes related with plant protection
and the environmental changes;
• Statistical methods for estimation of small sets of biological
data.
Militsa Ivanova Stefcheva
Assistant Professor
m.stefcheva@ppi-bg.org
Research interests аnd main research activities:
• Different types of wheat resistance to Puccinia recondita f. sp.
tritici.;
• Studies of virulence and molecular polymorphism in Puccinia recondita
f. sp. tritici populations in Bulgaria;
• Wheat Immunobreeding to diseases.
Zoya Ilieva Krastanova
Senior specialist-technician
• Maintainance and safety of laboratory equipment;
• Collection and preservation of pathogen samples;
• Experimental inoculation with pathogens and evaluation
of the results in the field;
• Cultivation of greenhouse tomato crops.
Troyanka Georgieva Georgieva
Senior specialist-technician
• Fungal diseases on wheat and barley.
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