Plant Work Environment

Scope

The main concern in plant biosafety is the protection of the environment. Plant pathogens and noxious weeds may have devastating effects on agriculture and biodiversity. But second to that is the protection of workers and the surrounding community.

Plant work encompasses a very broad range of areas including ecological and environmental issues, agriculture as well as the development and production of industrial and pharmaceutical products in plants. Hence, plant biosafety covers work with a variety of organisms such as:

• Toxic/poisonous plants
• Noxious weeds and parasitic plants
• Infected or infested plants
• Plant pathogenic bacteria, fungi, viruses and their vectors
• Mycoplasma-like organisms
• Phytophagus arthropods, their parasites and vectors
• Protozoa
• Nematodes
• Snails
• Biological control agents
• Genetically modified (transgenic) plants that may include genes from other plants, microorganism, animals, humans
• Genetically modified (transgenic) plant pathogens

Work Environment

The work with plants and plant-associated organisms may be carried out indoors or outdoors, in laboratories, tissue culture rooms, growth chamber or phytotrons, greenhouses (glasshouses), net houses, net cages or in the open field. Each of these environments poses different challenges with respect to containment, environmental and worker protection.