Lilium longiflorum cv. ‘Nellie White’ assumes a great economic importance as cut flowers, being one of the most valuable species (annual pot plants value above $20,000,000) in terms of whole- sales in the US. The root lesion nematode Pratylenchus penetrans (RLN) constitutes one of the main pests for lily producers due to the significant root damage it causes. Our efforts have focused on the generation of soybean hairy roots (as a transient test model) and stable transgenic lilies overexpressing a modified rice cystatin (Oc-IDD86) transgene and challenged with root lesion nematodes. Lily transformation was achieved by gene gun co-bombardmentusing both a pBluescript-based vector containing the cystatin gene and pDM307 that contains a bar gene for phosphinothricin selection. Both soybean hairy roots and lilies overexpressing the OcIDD86 transgene exhibited enhanced resistance to RLN infection by means of nematode reduction up to 75 ± 5 % on the total number of nematodes. In addition, lily plants overexpressing OcIDD86 displayed an increase of plant mass and better growth performance in comparison to wild-type plants, thereby demonstrating an alternative strategy for increasing the yield and reducing nematode damage to this important floral crop.