INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER ON PLANT PATHOLOGY

(UK Registered Charity No 1065521)

Material for the Newsletter is invited from individual members of ISPP, Associated Societies, Council members, Chairs of all Committees and representatives of Affiliated Societies and Supporting Organisations.

Editors, Joseph-Alexander Verreet, e-mail: javerreet@phytomed.uni-kiel.de
and Elaine Davison, e-mail: edavison@agric.wa.gov.au

In this issue:

• Introducing the ISPP Newletter editors
• Adhering to Good Cultural Practice (GCP)
• Joint Workshop on Molecular Diagnostics of Plant Pathogens
• New publications of interest to plant pathologists
• ISPP World Directory of Plant Pathologists
• Coming Events

Joseph-Alexander Verreet, PhD, Professor of Plant Pathology, University of Kiel, Germany

From 1974 to 1981, I studied agricultural sciences at the University of Bonn, Germany. I worked then as a PhD student at the Weihenstephan campus of the Technical University of Munich and I received a PhD in plant pathology in 1985. Until 1992, I worked in Weihensptephan as an Assistant Professor of Plant Pathology. In 1992, I received the so-called "Habilitation" for my research on the "Applied Foundations of an Integrated Crop Protection System in Wheat". In the same year, I received a position as a Full Professor of Plant Pathology and Director of the Department of Phytopathology of the University of Kiel, the capital of the northern-most state of Germany, Schleswig-Holstein.

My teaching interests include mycology, bacteriology, virology and plant protection. My research is focused on mycological problems of several crops (e.g., oilseed rape, sugar beet, wheat, barley). My current interests center on epidemiology as a basis for control measures and on prognosis model systems.

Elaine Davison, Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, and Curtin University of Technology

I am a graduate in botany from the University of Bristol, U.K. Since graduating I have held research positions in plant pathology/mycology at the universities of Adelaide and Oxford, and in the South Australian and Western Australian public service.

I have worked on a number of disease problems in forestry, including jarrah dieback and other diseases and disorders of trees. Since 1996 I have worked part-time in the Department of Agriculture, on diseases of carrots. I am also an honorary member of the Department of Environmental Biology at Curtin University where I teach Plant Protection.

Adhering to Good Cultural Practice (GCP)

To a student being trained in plant pathology, it is fundamental to know what Koch’s postulates (Shurtleff & Averre, 1997) are, and that he or she should comply with these four rules whenever a new disease record is reported, or an organism is regarded to be pathogenic to a host. These postulates are the dogma that must be adhered to before you can even consider submitting a new disease report to any scientific journal. These rules are well known to mycologists and all other scientists working with microorganisms, and they have even been adapted to suit virologists.

When one wants to publish a mycological description, the easiest option for many groups of fungi is to settle for an alpha-taxonomic approach, simply describing the morphology from the host specimens. In recent years, however, scientists have embraced the power of molecular techniques, and presently it is difficult to find papers that do not employ some type of molecular data to support their hypotheses. This new approach has elevated the importance of culture collections to a new level in science. When one pages through scientific journals, however, one often comes across numerous erroneous conclusions that are based on DNA sequence data obtained from cultures that are clearly not the fungus they were supposed to be. One obvious reason is that they were contaminated, and that a contaminant was sequenced. Another is that the fungus was incorrectly identified, an issue discussed at length by Agerer et al. (2000), who stressed the importance of depositing voucher specimens that can be linked to the cultures and DNA sequence data.

I am presently involved in a major research initiative with several mycologists world-wide, revising the cercosporoid anamorphs of the ascomycetous genus Mycosphaerella. As such, I get numerous collections from many countries, which I culture and deposit in culture collections. Recently, while I was examining a microscopic preparation of one of the cercosporoids I have been culturing, I noticed that mixed among the pigmented Pseudocercospora conidia I expected to see were a few conidia that were similar, but that belonged to other cercosporoid genera. Looking at my dishes of single conidial isolates, none of which was sporulating, I wondered which corresponded to the right fungus. From experience, I know that the majority of the species I am studying, will probably never sporulate in culture, and hence it would be difficult to trace the cultures back to the original conidial types. In another dish, I examined my single ascospore cultures of a new Mycosphaerella species. When I checked the original slides I had prepared of the germinating ascospores (Crous, 2000), a study done in parallel with culturing, I found that there were actually three, and not one species that had shot ascospores from the lesion I used for culturing. Looking at my single ascospore cultures, I again wondered which colony represented the species I was trying to isolate. The phenomenon of primary pathogens inducing lesions that are later colonized by secondary pathogens or saprobes is well known in genera such as Mycosphaerella. Most of these ascospore cultures would not be expected to sporulate. Obviously then, although my cultures were established from single conidia and ascospores, I had not adhered to good cultural practice (GCP) in obtaining them.

To address these problems, I hereby propose the following rules of GCP for microorganisms obtained from fruiting bodies or lesions:

1. The organism must be obtained in axenic culture via a single spore (conidium, ascospore, basidiospore, etc.);
2. The culture must be induced to form the original organism (state) from which the spores were obtained, or the geminating spore must be confirmed microscopically as belonging to the correct taxon, by examining it on the dish prior to selection for cultivation;
3. The link between sexual and asexual spores must be carefully documented either by choosing fruiting bodies to obtain cultures from that have been examined microscopically, or by choosing fruiting bodies that are adjacent to the material used for slide preparation, and that are morphologically similar;
4. Ex-type cultures of species must be included as standards in every molecular study, wherever available;
5. Strains and corresponding herbarium specimens should be deposited in at least one major international collection (such as ATCC, CBS, CABI Bioscience, etc.);
6. Sequence data and alignments should be deposited in major international databases, such as GenBank and TreeBase.

Furthermore, journals should request that authors state in their materials and methods if they adhered to GCP when describing a new species, or reporting a new anamorph-teleomorph relationship. This statement would set a standard, similar in value to saying that you adhered to Koch’s postulates. It would greatly assist the science of mycology and plant pathology. It would introduce a sort of quality control for the benefit of those researchers who might one day want to make a statement about a sterile culture available in a collection, awaiting further study.

References:

Agerer, R., Ammirati, J., Blanz, P., Courtecuisse, R., Desjardin, D. E., Gams, W., Hallenberg, H., Halling, R. E., Hawksworth, D. L., Horak, E., Korf, R. P., Mueller, G. M., Oberwinkler, F., Rambold, G., Summerbell, R. C., Triebel, D., Watling, R. (2000) Always deposit vouchers. Mycological Research 104: 643–644.
 Crous, P. W. (2000) An improved technique for obtaining single ascospore cultures of ascomycetes. Mycologist 14: 101–103.
 Shurtleff, M. C. & Averre, C.W. III. (1997) Glossary of Plant-Pathological Terms. APS Press, St. Paul, MN.

 Pedro W. Crous
Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures, Uppsalalaan 8, 3584 CT Utrecht, The Netherlands.
E-mail: crous@cbs.knaw.nl

November 20 – 23, 2003, Lamezia Terme, Italy,

The workshop, co-organized by the :

• Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
• Mediterranean Phytopathological Union
• Società Italiana di Nematologia
• Società Italiana di Patologia Vegetale

will illustrate and discuss advanced methodologies for the diagnosis of plant pathogenic fungi, bacteria, nematodes and viruses.

Contact: Prof. Franco Lamberti, Istituto di Nematologia Agraria, C.N.R., Via G. Amendola, 165/A, 70126 Bari, Italy. fax: +39-080-5484165, e-mail: nemafe01@area.ba.cnr.it

The Biology of Fungal Pathogens
Volume 2: Fungal Pathogens and Diseases in Cereals DVD or VHS

Edited by Dr. Joseph-Alexander Verreet and Dr. Holger Klink, Department of Plant Pathology, Christian-Albrechts University, price: $99

In-depth knowledge of the conditions under which pathogens, in particular parasitic fungi, live and develop is a prerequisite for crop protection. Only with this knowledge can plant diseases be detected in due time and selectively treated.

The video series The Biology of Fungal Pathogens grants easy access to this knowledge. Through an exciting blend of vivid 3D animations and real images, with informative commentaries, these videos provide fascinating insight into the life cycles of major fungal pathogens. The series is an outstanding example of communication in modern science.

2003; ISBN 0-89054-305-4; DVD
2003; ISBN 0-89054-306-2; VHS (set of 2 videotapes)

Order Online or by Contacting APS PRESS at:
3340 Pilot Knob Road
St. Paul, MN 55121-2097 U.S.A.
Telephone: +1.651.454.7250
Fax: +1.651.454.0766
E-mail: aps@scisoc.org

Fire Blight: The Foundation of Phytobacteriology

Edited by Clay S. Griffith, Turner B. Sutton, and Paul D. Peterson
Price: $55

Fire Blight: The Foundation of Phytobacteriology tells the story of the exciting first decades of fire blight research. This fascinating collection of papers from the early 19th and 20th centuries highlights work from three notable scientists who pioneered work on the disease - Thomas Jonathan Burrill, Joseph Charles Arthur, and Merton Benway Waite.

These papers establish the fundamental concept that bacteria could cause plant disease and provide the first proof that insects acted as vectors of plant pathogens. The discoveries recorded here belong to the same class of scientific breakthroughs as the work on rust and smut disease in the1850's, which revealed the fact of fungal pathogenicity. The importance of the early studies on fire blight also relate to the development of biology and bacteriology because the revelation that bacteria could cause plant disease came at virtually the same time as the similar discovery with human and animal diseases. And the research in the role of insects in the spread of disease appeared contemporaneously with reports of insect vectors in animal disease. Read more and order online.

E-mail: aps@scisoc.org

 ISPP World Directory of Plant Pathologists.

Find a colleague, check out a potential collaborator - go to the World Directory from www.ISPPWeb.org or more directly at http://www.scisoc.org/ispp/world_directory/. If your society members are not included please encourage the society to submit their data. If individual data needs updating, please encourage your society to submit updated data. All additions and corrections are the responsibility of the national/regional society.

For details and format information, contact the ISPP World Directory Facilitator, Charlie Delp at charliedelp@hotmail.com or cdelp@tampabay.rr.com

American Phytopathology Society 95th Annual Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA.
9-13 August 2003.
See <http://www.apsnet.org>.

Ninth International Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology in Stanford University, USA.
13-23 August 2003
www.kuleuven.ac.be/aidslab/veme.htm

Western International Forest Disease Work Conference Grants Pass, Oregon, USA.
18-22 August 2003
www.fs.us/foresthealth/technology/wif/index.php

International Workshop on Models for Plant Growth and Control of Product Quality in Horticultural Production, Potsdam, Germany
25-28 August
www.igzev.de/potsdam2003

II International Symposium on Litchi, Longan and Related Sapindaceae, Chang Mai, Thailand.
25-28 August 2003
email: agrsns@ku.ac.th

EUCARPIA XXI International Symposium Classical vs. Molecular Breeding of Ornamentals, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany.
25-29 August, 2003
email: forkmann@lzw.agrar.tu-muenchen.de

V International Symposium on New Floricultural Crops, Iguaza Falls, Parana, Brazil.
26-30 August 2003
www.center.barao.iac.br/cec/njb/newflowers.htm

Second International Symposium on Plant Health in Urban Horticulture in Berlin, Germany.
27-29 August 2003.
Organized by The Plant Protection Services of Berlin and the Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in cooperation with the German Phytomedical Society.
Contact: Dr Hartmut Balder, Plant Protection Service of Berlin, Mohriner Allee 137, D-12347 Berlin, Germany; e-mail: <pflanzenschutzamt@senstadt.verwalt-berlin.de>.

IV International Symposium on Irrigation of Horticultural Crops, Davis, California, USA.
1-5 September 2003
www.cevs.ucdavis.edu/cofred/public/

EUCARPIA Symposium on Fruit Breeding and Genetics, Angers, France
1-5 September 2003
Http://www.angers.inra.fr/eucarpia/index.html

Controlled Environment Technology for Sustainable Agricultural Production, Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.
2-4 September 2003
http://www.mardi.my/ver2/sem_conf/ish/index,html

30^th International Carrot Conference, Muskegon, Michigan, USA
7-10 September 2003
http://plantpathology.msu.edu/labs/hausbeck/CarrotMtgIntl.htm

13th Biennial Australian Research Assembly on Brassicas, Tamworth, Australia
10 - 12 September 2003
www.agric.nsw.gov.au/ARABConference

14th Meeting of the International Council for the study of Virus and Virus-like Diseases of the Grapevine (ICVG) in Locorotondo (Bari), Italy.
12–17 September 2003.
Contact: Donato Boscia <csvvdb08@area.ba.cnr.it>. See: <http://www.agr.uniba.it/ICVG2003>.

Slovak and Czech Plant Protection Conference in Nitra, Slovak Republic.
16-17 September 2003.
Contact <Jozef.Huszar@uniag.sk> or <Kamil.Hudec@uniag.sk>.

PGPR Conference, Calicut, Kerala, India
5-10 October 2003
www.ag.auburn.edu/india

Eighth Arab Congress of Plant Protection in El-Beida, Libya.
12-16 October 2003
Contact: Dr Ali Bataw, <alibataw@hotmail.com>, Secretary of the Organizing Committee, Faculty of Agriculture, Omar El-Mokhtar University, El-Beida, Libya or Dr Bassam Bayaa, <B.Bayaa@cgiar.org>, President of the Arab Society of Plant Protection ICARDA, P.O. Box 5466, Aleppo, Syria.

VII International symposium on Temperate Zone Fruits in the Tropics and Subtropics, Nauni, India
14-18 October 2003
email: kkjindal_tzfts@yahoo.com

III International Chestnut Symposium, Chaves, Portugal
20-23 October 2003
www.utad.pt/eventos/chestnutcongress

I International Symposium on Saffron Biology and Biotechnology, Albacete, Spain.
22-25 October 2003
www.uclm.es/cursos/azafran

First International ISHS Symposium on Tomato Diseases, Kusadasi, Turkey
27-31 October 2003
http://plantdoctor.ifas.ufl.edu/istd.html

Tenth Annual International Research Conference on Methyl Bromide Alternatives and Emissions Reduction, San Diego, California, USA.
3-6 November 2003
www.mbao.org

Joint Workshop on Molecular Diagnostics of Plant Pathogens, Lamezia Terme, Italy
20-23 November 2003
Contact: Prof. Franco Lamberti, nemafe01@area.ba.cnr.it

Special Interest Symposium on ‘Plant Pathogen Actinomycetes’ and ‘Common Scab Diseases of Potato’, (part of the 13^th International Symposium on the Biology of Actinomycetes), Melbourne, Australia
1-5 December 2003
www.conferencestrategy.com.au/isba/index.html

6th International Septoria/Stagonospora Symposium in Tunis, Tunisia.
8-12 December 2003.
Contact: Dr GHJ Kema at G.H.J.Kema@plant.wag-ur.nl.

3rd Canadian Workshop on Fusarium Head Blight (CWFHB), Winnipeg, Canada
9-12 December 2003

British Society for Plant Pathology Presidential Meeting - Plant-Pathogen Genomics - from Sequence to Application in Nottingham, UK.
15-18 December 2003.
Contact: Dr M Dickinson, School of Biological Science, University of Nottingham, Loughborough LE12 5RD, UK; Fax: +44-115-951-3251; e-mail: <meetings@bspp.org.uk>.

IX International Symposium on Pear Growing, Stellenbosch, South Africa
1-6 February 2004
www.pearsymposium.co.za

3rd Australasian Soilborne Diseases Symposium, Rowland Flat, South Australia, Australia
8-11 February 2004
www.plevin.com.au/ASDS2004

I International Root and Tuber Crops symposium: "Food down Under", Palmerston North, New Zealand
9-12 February 2004
www.crop.cri.nz/conferences/roottuber2004/

GEMINI2004: A comparative ssDNA Virus Conference, Capetown, South Africa.
16-20 February 2004
www.uct.ac.za/microbiology/Gemini2004.htm

XI International Symposium on Virus Diseases of Ornamental Plants, Taichung, Taiwan
9-13 March 2004
http://www.tari.gov.tw/isvdop-11/index.html

International Symposium on Protected Cultivation in Mild Winter Climates, Orlando, Florida, USA
23-27 March 2004
conference.ifas.ufl.edu/ishs/

International Symposium on Protea, Melbourne, Australia
3-7 April, 2004
innobiz@vicnet.net.au

IX International Symposium on Flowerbulbs, Niigata, Japan
19-22 April 2004
http://jshs.ac.affrc.go.jp/symposium/bulb2004/index.html

IV International symposium on Edible Alliaceae, Beijing, China
21-26 April 2004
www.ivfcaas.net.cn

VIII International Symposium on Vaccinium Culture, Nova Oeriras and Alala del Rio Sevilla, Portugal and Spain
3-8 May 2004
llf@mail.telepac.pt

International Joint Workshop on PR-Proteins and Induced Resistance, Denmark
5-9 May 2004
http://pr-ir2004.risoe.dk/index.htm

XVth International Plant Protection Congress, Beijing, China
11-16 May 2004
www.ipmchina.net/ippc

V International Postharvest Symposium, Verona, Italy
6-11 June 2004
<ptonutti@agripolis.unipd.it>.

International symposium on Nutrition and Fertilization – Towards ecologically sound fertilisation strategies in field vegetable production, Perugia Italy
7-10 June 2004
unipg.it/ishs2004

Management of plant diseases and arthropod pests by BCAs and their integration in agricultural systems
 Istituto Agrario di S. Michele all’Adige (IASMA), Italy
9-13 June 2004
http://www.ismaa.it/uodifesa/iobc.html

VIII International symposium on Integrating Canopy, Rootstock and environmental Physiology in Orchard Systems, Budapest, Hungary
13-18 June 2004
hrotko@omega.kee.hu

VI International Congress on Hazelnut, Reus-Tarragona, Spain
14-18 June 2004
www.hazelnut2004.com

VII International Symposium on Modelling in Fruit Research and Orchard Management, Copenhagen, Denmark
20-24 June 2004
pbr@kvl.dk

ISHS First International Symposium on Tomato Diseases, Orlando Florida, USA
21-24 June 2004
http://plantdoctor.ifas.ufl.edu/istd.html

III International Symposium on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Breeding Research and II Latin americal Symposium on the Production of Medicinal Aromatic and Condiment Plants, Campinas-Sao Paulo, Brazil
5-8 July 2004
linming@fca.unesp.br

X International Workshop on Fire Blight, Bologna, Italy
5-9 July 2004
www.agri/sci.unibo.it/fireblight

11th International Cereal Rust and Powdery Mildew Conference in Norwich, UK.
23-27 August 2004.
Contact: Dr James Brown, John Innes Centre, Norwich, NR4 7UH, UK; Fax: +44-1603-450045; e-mail: <james.brown@bbsrc.ac.uk>.

International Symposium on Horticultural Economics and Management. Creating Value in a Changing Society, Berlin, Germany
29 August – 3 September 2004
www.agrar.hu-berlin.de/wisola/ishs

VIII International symposium on Plum and Prune Genetics, Breeding and Technology Lofthus, Norway
6-9 September 2004
http://www.planteforsk.no/

V International Strawberry Symposium, Brisbane, Australia
5-10 September 2004
greern@dpi.qld.gov.au

International Symposium GREENSYS 2004 – Sustainable Greenhouse Systems: Co-operation of engineering and Crop Science, Leuven, Belgium
12-16 September 2004
www.greensys2004.nl

V International Symposium on In Vitro Culture and Horticultural Breeding, Decrecen, Hungary
12-17 September 2004
www.ivchb2004.org

4^th International Crop Science Congress, Brisbane, Australia
26 September – 4 October 2004
4icsc04@im.com.au

V International Symposium on Olive Growing, Turkey
27 September – 2 October 2004
www.agri.ankara.edu.tr

VI International Symposium on Chemical and Non-Chemical Soil and Substrate Disinfestation, Corfu, Greece
4-8 October 2004
ect@aua.gr

III International Symposium on Persimmon, Jinju, Korea
5-9 October 2004
smk@nongae.gsnu.ac.kr

IV ISHS Symposium on Brassica and XIV Crucifer Genetics Workshop, Daejon, Korea
24-28 October 2004
yplim@cnu.ac.kr

XIII International Botrytis Symposium in Antalya, Turkey.
25 -31 October 2004.
contact: Dr. Figen Yildiz <fyildiz@ziraat.ege.edu.tr>.

5th International Walnut Symposium, Sorrento, Naples, Italy
7-14 November 2004
Contact: Emilia Malvolti <mimi@ias.tr.cnr.it

13th Meeting of the Latin American Association of Plant Pathology. Córdoba. Argentina
April 2005 (tentative).
slenard@infovia.com.ar

International Plant Virus Epidemiology Symposium, Lima, Peru.
4-8 April 2005
Contact: Pamela Anderson p.anderson@cgiar.org

International Working Groups on Legume and Vegetable Viruses, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
11-15 April, 2005
Contact: Gail Wisler gcwisler@mail.ifas.ufl.edu

XVII International Botanical Congress (XVII IBC 2005), Vienna, Austria,
18-23 July 2005
website: http://www.ibc2005.ac.at

The XIIIth Latin American Phytopathological Congress (XIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Fitopatología) in the city of Cordoba, Cordoba Province, Argentina.
Mid-2005.
Organized by the Latin American Phytopathological Association (ALF) jointly with the annual meeting of the Argentine Phytopathological Association (Asociación Argentina de Fitopatología, AAF).
Contact: Dr Sergio L Lenardon, Institute for Phytopathology and Plant Physiology (IFFIVE), INTA, Cordoba, Argentina; <slenard@infovia.com.ar>.

ICPP 2008, Torino, Italy,
24-29 August, 2008
Contact: Prof. M.L. Gullino, University of Torino: marialodovica.gullino@unito.it