On Tuesday, the 22st of January.2013 a lecture was held at Biological Centre, Biotechnical Faculty, university of Ljubljana, Slovenia entitled "New research for healthy plants!" Lecture was prepared by prof. dr. Maja Ravnikar and dr. Tanja Dreo from National Institute of Biology (NIB), Department of Biotechnology and Systems Biology, Slovenia.

The lecture was held to honour 15 years of cooperation with the plant protection service and extension of accreditation BS EN ISO / IEC 17025 in the domain of microorganisms. Lecturers presented the latest research and diagnostic methods that provide control of plant diseases and improve the quality of crops. They emphasized the importance of consistent control and sampling of plant material in addition to good diagnostic methods for the detection of harmful microorganisms in plant material. Only in this way we can detect disease early enough and prevent it from spreading and causing major economic losses.

New technologies that are being developed for detection of microbes on the most important crops in Slovenia (such as grape vines, fruit trees and potatoes) were also introduced. In the last 15 years, we have gained significant knowledge of the biology and epidemiology of plant pathogenic organisms, explored their diversity and developed new, reliable diagnostic methods such as real-time PCR for many viruses, bacteria and phytoplasmas found in Slovenia for the first time.

We also introduced the development of new sequencing technologies in diagnostics (barcoding), and innovations such as the development of new isothermal molecular method LAMP, which can be carried out on-site of the infection in nurseries or at checkpoints. LAMP can be used for detection of quarantine microorganisms grapevine yellows are gold and brown rot of potato.

Moreover, projects on biological agents were presented, such as bacteriophages for prevention of bacterial infections of orchids, antibacterial substances from mushrooms for protection of potato plants and tracking the biological control fungus for control of diseases of strawberry.

The lecture opened M.Sc. Katarina Groznik from The administration of Republic of Slovenia for Food Safety, Veterinary and Plant Protection. The meeting was attended by over 100 researchers, inspectors, ministry staff and students.

The lecture opened M.Sc. Katarina Groznik from The administration of Republic of Slovenia for Food Safety, Veterinary and Plant Protection.

Prof. Dr. Maja Ravnikar emphasized the importance of consistent control and sampling of plant material in addition to good diagnostic methods for the detection of harmful microorganisms in plant material.

New methods for rapid detection of harmful microorganisms, such as LAMP, greatly shorten the time of analysis, since it can be performed in the laboratory, on the site of infection in nurseries or at checkpoints.

Dr. Tanja Dreo presented development of environmentally friendly technologies for the active prevention of infections of plants, based on molecules of biological origin.

The meeting was attended by over 100 researchers, inspectors, ministry staff and students.