K G Davies Ltd is a business wholly owned by Dr Keith Davies who has worked in the area of plant protection for over 30 years. His business focuses on the control of plant-parasitic nematodes and takes an integrated approach that exploits the knowledge of the tritrophic interactions between nematodes and their plant hosts and the fungi and bacteria found to be associated with nematode suppressive soils. The knowledge is used to develop environmentally benign management strategies as an alternative to nematicides.
The challenge:There is no such thing as a post-agricultural society; therefore increasing demand for food security highlights the importance of crop protection. The reduction of crop losses due to pests and diseases is fundamental to crop security. Plant-parasitic nematodes cause between $80 - $100 billion crop losses annually, and they are amongst the most difficult crop pests to control. They damage plant roots and impair water and nutrient uptake. Predicted climate change and reduced water availability will increase their importance. Within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals of reducing hunger and maintaining environmental sustainability, recent methods of pest control have move away from highly toxic pesticides, as they are environmentally damaging and being legislated against. The removal of these toxic chemicals from the market has lead to the search for alternative control methods.
The solution:K G Davies Ltd is based in the United Kingdom with experience in the field of crop protection at home and overseas. The business takes place within the context of reconciling the conflict between agricultural production and food security on the one hand, and, environmental, economic and social sustainability on the other. Using insights gained from studying the interactions between nematodes, their plant hosts and their microbial enemies, and by exploiting the new genomics data available in public data bases, the work identifies the susceptibilities of nematodes to their plant hosts and to their natural enemies and use this knowledge to develop novel, robust, and environmentally benign control strategies.
Core services:
Shortcuts
The shortcuts below give you quick access to examples of our work, current presentations and useful resources:
Caenorhabditis elegans:
Movie clip of nematode "worms" on an agar plate
Synthetic biology and biocontrol
Talk given at AAB Advances in Nematology meeting
Potato Cyst Nematode decline
Talk given at Bioforsk, Norway
Biological Control & Pasteuria penetrans
Talk to U. Ghent PINC students
Publications
Full list of publications to 2015
