The Istituto per la Protezione delle Piante (IPP), or 'Institute of Plant Protection', is part of the Food Department of the

Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche The National Research Council (Italian: ''Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR'') is the largest research council in Italy. As a public organisation, its remit is to support scientific and technological research. Its headquarters are in Rome. ...

(CNR; "Italian National Research Council"), an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

government organization with the aim of supporting

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

and

technological Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

research Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

. IPP has four bases in Italy:

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

Portici Portici (; ) is a town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Naples in Italy. It is the site of the Portici Royal Palace. Geography Portici lies at the foot of Mount Vesuvius on the Bay of Naples, about southeast of Naples itself. There i ...

, and Bari. The mission of IPP is the study of stress factors in plants, to identify resistance mechanisms and methods of defence against biotic and abiotic stress protection in order to improve the quality and quantity of agricultural food production in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. The activities of IPP are divided into five orders: * Biodiversity of hosts, pathogens, vectors, pests and symbiotic fungi in the rhizosphere. * Host-organism-environment interaction: biology, epidemiology and functional genomics. * Research and development of innovative strategies to fight for protection of plants. * Economic impact and environmental stress factors on plants and ecosystems agroforestry production. * Structure and functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. The IPP station in Florence is renowned for raising

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

cultivars resistant to

Dutch elm disease Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by a member of the sac fungi (Ascomycota) affecting elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced into Americas, America ...

, several of which are now in commerce in western Europe.Santini A., Fagnani A., Ferrini F. & Mittempergher L., (2002) San Zanobi and Plinio elm trees

''HortScience'' 37(7): 1139-1141. 2002. American Society for Horticultural Science, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA.Santini A., Fagnani A., Ferrini F., Mittempergher L., Brunetti M., Crivellaro A., Macchioni N. (2004). Elm breeding for DED resistance, the Italian clones and their wood propertie

''Invest Agrar: Sist. Recur. For.'' (2004) 13 (1), 179-184. 2004.Santini, A., Pecori, F., Pepori, A., & Brookes, A. (2011). 'Morfeo' Elm: a new variety resistant to Dutch elm disease. ''Forest Pathology'', April 2012, Vol. 42, Issue 2, 171-17

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References

External links

homepage of the IPP website.
www.cnr.it
homepage of the CNR website. {{in lang, en Science and technology in Italy