This exciting and successful international Workshop was held in Madrid Spain on June 16-19, 2024 at the Institute of Agricultural Sciences (ICA) that belongs to the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). The Workshop was attended by more than 40 participants from several different countries from Europe, America and Australia. It was the first formal European Workshop, although several other EPG-related courses were held in the past in Europe (The Netherlands, France and Spain). This 1st European Workshop was sponsored by Corteva Agriscience and the Horizon Europe BEXYL European Union project as well as by CSIC. The principal symposium organiser was the Insect Vectors of Plant Pathogens (IVPP) team (A. Moreno, E. Garzo, J. Jimenez and C. Lago) led by A. Fereres with the help of D. Cornara (University of Bari,Italy) and P. Trebicki (MacQuarie University, Australia).
The programme started on Sunday 16rd June with registration and a welcome reception. The morning sessions held from the 17th to the 19th of June consisted of keynote talks followed by 15min-oral presentations. The afternoon and evening sessions were dedicated to practical hands-on sessions focused on training new users on the different aspects of EPG technology and related techniques (cryofixation, honeydew clocks, stylectomy, video-tracking and artificial diet feeding). Furthermore, students were taught how to use specific EPG waveform recognition and Workbooks for automatic EPG variable calculation.
This 1st EPG Workshop was very stimulating and well organised, covered by well-known scientists with long experience in the EPG technique together with beginners that took advantage of the hands-on sessions. We hope that the workshop will become an excellent forum for establishing new collaborations between participants. At the end of the Workshop, Prof Tjallingii proposed the creation of an International EPG Committee that could serve as an advisory board for EPG work as well as the organization of future EPG Workshops. All members of the IVPP team at ICA-CSIC, Madrid are to be congratulated warmly over a job well done.