The Third Annual review meeting of the outreach project on Pytophthora, Fusarium and Ralstonia diseases of horticultural and field crops (PHYTOFURA) along with that of ALCOCERA was held at Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru on 3-4th March 2011 under the chairman ship of Dr H.P. Singh, Deputy Director General (Horticulture, ICAR , New Delhi. Dr. A. M. Mukhopadhyay, Former Vice Chancellor, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat and Dr. J. Kumar, Dean & Registrar, GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar attended the meeting as experts for review. Many scientists from all the involving centers participated in the review meeting.  

Dr Amrik Singh Sidhu, Director, IIHR welcomed the gathering and hoped that the project made significant contributions to our present knowledge on these organisms.
Many technical bulletins were released. They are

1. Final Annual Report of ALCOCERA (2009-2012)
2. Salient Achievements of PHYTOFURA
3. DNA Bar-coding of economically important fungal species of field and horticultural crops
4. Integrated management of early and late blight of potato and tomato
5. Bordeaux mixture

Dr. P. Chowdappa, Principal Scientist, IIHR and coordinator presented the consolidated report and progress of ALCOCERA. Dr. M. Anandaraj, Director, IISR and coordinator presented the consolidated report and progress of PHYTOFURA. The genesis and the onward progress of the project and the guidance and encouragement given by the honorable DDG Dr H.P. Singh for smooth running of the project was highlighted by both the coordinators. Dr H.P. Singh in his remarks lauded the efforts of both the coordinators for the significant achievements of both the projects and said the stupendous amount of information generated in the project helped us to have much better understanding of the host, pathogen and environment interactions involved for developing better management strategies for safer and green environment. He complemented the efforts of both the projects in generating whole genome sequences of Phytophthora , Alternaria, Colletotrichum and Cercospora and said now in the 12th plan we must focus on developing facilities and expertise for annotation of these voluminous sequence data generated. He also advised that the final report of the project must clearly categories the results obtained into - Achievements in terms of targets fixed for each activity, Questions- Answered, Process/ Good Agricultural P practices / Product/ Genetic stocks/ Technology/ Software/ Expert systems/ Databases Developed their practical Utility and the revenue the project is expected to generate in future years. He also suggested that future lines of work must be clearly defined and expressed strong conviction that this project will continue in the 12 plan also.
Dr M. Krishna Reddy, HOD, Plant Pathology, IIHR gave vote of thanks and informed the house that whole genome of Ralstonia was also sequenced at IIHR, Bengaluru.