The Swedish Board of Agriculture learned about nematodes at SLU

Some nematodes can be parasites on crops while others are beneficial animals that can be used to fight other insect pests. The training course focused on the plant parasites and encompassed half a day. It was held at the Department of Ecology at SLU in Uppsala. None of the participants had previously worked actively with nematodes but believe that it is an important competence to have within the organization.

– The aim of this education was to go through symptoms of nematode damage on plants, and to be able to distinguish between common genera of plant-parasitic nematodes that can be found in Sweden. In addition, we prepared specimens for dissecting microscope and microscope and worked practically to see the differences between the different nematodes, says course leader Maria Viketoft.

Many groups of plant-parasitic nematodes

The participants from the Swedish Board of Agriculture got the opportunity to look at both living nematodes and in-advance prepared slides with dead nematodes. The most important groups of plant-parasitic nematodes found in Sweden were included in the course: root-lesion nematodes, root-knot nematodes, needle nematodes, stubby-root nematodes and cyst nematodes. These groups of nematodes cause various kinds of damage to the crops.

– It was fun to give this training course and I hope that the course participants’ new nematode knowledge will be useful when advising growers in the future, concludes Maria.