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.
Editor: Brian J Deverall,
(E-mail)
In this
issue:
ISPP
Rhizoctonia Symposium
The
ISPP Rhizoctonia Subject Matter Committee and the German Rhizoctonia
Symposium Organizing Committee invite participation in the 4th
International Symposium on Rhizoctonia in Berlin, Germany, from 20
to 23 August 2008; see “Coming Events”. The meeting has been
timed to take place immediately before the ISPP International
Congress of Plant Pathology in Torino, Italy.
The
program in Berlin will focus on genomics, plant-pathogen
interactions, pathogen detection, disease control, molecular
technologies, and innovative findings. These topics will be covered
in lectures and poster sessions attended by leaders in research and
industry. Time will be reserved for interpersonal interactions to
foster collaborations. The Symposium will provide a platform for
university researchers and teachers as well as government and
industry researchers and extension personnel to share information on
the latest issues in Rhizoctonia.
Preliminary
details of the meeting can be found on the ISPP Rhizoctonia Subject
Matter Committee web page at ( http://rhizoctonia.org
).
Stephen
Neate, Chair, ISPP Rhizoctonia Committee (E-mail).
Rita Grosch, Chair, Symposium Organizing Committee.
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New
African Agriculture Body
Nairobi, Kenya, will house the
headquarters of The Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). The
new Chairman of the Board, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, made
the announcement and said that the Alliance will work with African
governments, the private sector and development agencies. It will work
towards breaking the cycles of hunger and poverty in Africa through
initiatives that will provide small-scale farmers with the tools and
opportunities they need to boost their productivity, increase their
incomes and build better lives.
The new initiative will be in African
programs for developing better and more appropriate seeds; fortifying
depleted soils with responsible use of soil nutrients and better
management practices; improving access to water and water-use efficiency;
improving income opportunities through better agricultural input and
output markets; developing local networks of agricultural education;
understanding and sharing the wealth of African farmers’ knowledge;
encouraging government policies that support small-scale farmers; and
monitoring and evaluating to ensure that Alliance efforts improve the
lives of small-scale farm households and help build a sustainable future
for all Africans. AGRA is an initiative of the Rockefeller
Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill and Melinda
Gates foundation has donated US$150 million to start off the new
initiative.
See ( http://www.agra-alliance.org/
).
Microsoft
accelerates free access to journals
Dr
Greg Johnson, ISPP Secretary-General, provided the following
information sourced from SciDev.Net ( http://www.scidev.net/news
) reference
Ochieng' Ogodo 16 July 2007.
Information
technology company Microsoft will give technical assistance to
enhance access to online research for scientists, policymakers and
librarians in the developing world.
This
was announced at a July 2007 meeting in Washington, DC, USA. The
meeting was of representatives from WHO, FAO, the UN Environmental
Programme, and leading science and technology publishers, together
with personnel from Cornell and Yale Universities.
It officially extended free access to peer-reviewed journals
for many developing world scientists to 2015, in line with the UN
Millennium Development Goals.
The
portals AGORA [Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture] ( http://www.aginternetwork.org/en
) and
OARE [Online Access to Research in the Environment] ( http://www.oaresciences.org/en
)
provide access to journals focusing on agriculture and the
environment to more than 100 of the world's poorest countries.
Microsoft
will provide new software called the Intelligent Application Gateway
2007 that will meet increased demand for access to heavily
trafficked portals and perform at the standards of the most heavily
used websites. The system will also enhance security through
authentication of users when they log on.
-
-
Biology
International
Futher to a news item about the IUBS
in the June 2007 issue of the ISPP Newsletter, IUBS (International
Union of Biological Sciences) has a News Magazine named Biology
International (ISSN° 02532069).
Until 1998, "regular" and
"special" issues appeared as separate series. Since 1998
and issue number 36, all issues are numbered consecutively, and as
from issue number 46, Biology
International appears only online. Access is from
(
http://www.iubs.org/newiubs/products/bio_int.php ).
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2007
World Food Prize Recipient
Professor Philip E Nelson, Department
of Food Science, Purdue University, Indiana, USA, ( http://www.foodsci.purdue.edu/personnel/14
) is the recipient of the 2007 World Food Prize. He
developed post-harvest technologies that allow the large-scale
storage, packaging and transportation of fruit and vegetable
products.
His research led to methods and
equipment to sterilize perishable food without chemicals and
preserve it at safe temperatures in lined, bacteria-free carbon
steel tanks ranging in capacity from about 350 litres to nearly 2
million litres. He also developed a "bag-in-box"
technology for preserving and shipping smaller quantities of foods.
The flexible sterile bags are stored in one-time-use cardboard
containers or reusable wooden boxes holding up to about 1,000
litres.
Consequently,
waste and spoilage is reduced for the post-harvest keeping of
products, and for their processing throughout the year and shipping
around the world for final processing and packaging. The
technologies have made it practicable to transport a variety of
foods without the need for refrigeration.
Humanitarian
feeding programs funded by the USDA are using Nelson's technologies
to provide bacteria-free packaged milk and biscuits as part of
school nutrition programs in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia,
Pakistan and Bangladesh. A Brazilian juice company uses the tank
technology to ship millions of litres of orange juice to the USA and
Europe. The technologies also have been used to bring potable water
and emergency food aid to survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean
tsunami, to victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and to people in
other crisis situations worldwide.
The World
Food Programme is the food aid arm of the United Nations. The
21-year-old World Food Prize was established by Nobel Peace Prize
winner Norman Borlaug. The prize is awarded annually to individuals
who have made significant contributions to improving the quality,
quantity and availability of food in the world.
For
more information, see the
World Food Prize Web site ( http://www.worldfoodprize.org
).
USA
Congress honours Norman Borlaug
- Norman
Borlaug regarded as the father of the "Green Revolution"
received the Congressional Gold Medal of the USA for life-long work
against world hunger. The Congressional Gold Medal, first given to
George Washington in 1776, honours people who have given outstanding
service to the security, prosperity and national interest of the
USA.
-
- Norman
Borlaug’s advances helped nearly double the food supply in several
countries including Mexico, India and Pakistan. His efforts date
back to the mid-20th century, when he developed disease-resistant
and high-yielding wheat cultivars and worked to grow these crops
using modern farming techniques in older systems. He has more
recently focused on increasing food production in Africa and other
parts of Asia.
-
- Norman
Borlaug in 1970 was the first Nobel Peace Prize recipient for work
in agriculture. Later, he was presented with the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.
IPP
Training Workshop in Cairo, Egypt
FAO
in collaboration with the Arab Society of Plant Protection (ASPP)
organized
a training workshop on the use of International Phytosanitary Portal
(IPP) to meet the national phytosanitary information exchange
obligations under the International Plant Protection Convention. The
workshop was in Cairo, Egypt, during 24-28 June 2007.
Participants from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco,
Oman, Sudan, Syria and Yemen joined the workshop. Dr Dave Nowell (FAO)
served as the facilitator, Dr Bassam Bayaa (Syria) and Mr Charles
Zarzour (Lebanon) as resource persons, and Dr Safaa Kumari (ASPP) as
the rapporteur for the workshop.
This
note was sent by Dr Khaled M Makkouk, Regional Coordinator, Nile
Valley and Sub-Saharan Africa Program (NVSSAP), International Center
for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, 15 G Radwan Ibn El-Tabib
Street, Giza, PO Box 2416, Cairo, EGYPT. Phone: (+202) 5724358.
E-mail:
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APS
Develops Agreement with CSPP
The
American Phytopathological Society (APS) informs that their
delegation met with officials of the Chinese Society of Plant
Pathology (CSPP) in Beijing at the end of May 2007. A cooperative
agreement outlining short-term objectives for collaborations was
signed by officers of both organizations. The CSPP will be visiting
the APS meetings in San Diego in late July 2007 to continue planning
projects of mutual interest. Further detail about the May meeting is
in the August 2007 issue of Phytopathology
News.
See
( www.apsnet.org/members/phyto/2007/08/070801.pdf
).
Identification
of Phytophthora Species by ITS Fingerprinting
A useful
web-site PhytID for work with plant pathogenic species of Phytophthora is
at ( http://www.phytid.org/index.htm
).
Engineered
tomatoes with a nice smell
Researchers in Israel have engineered
tomatoes to have a new aroma and other properties. The work is that
of Dr Efraim Lewinsohn (twefraim@volcani.agri.gov.il)
and colleagues at the Newe
Yaar Research Centre, Agricultural
Research Organization, PO Box 1021, Ramat Yishay 30095, Israel. They
report that the transgenic tomatoes includes
a gene from a variety of lemon basil, Ocimum
basilicum, that produces
an aroma-making enzyme called geraniol synthase and thus have hints
of lemon and rose aromas.
An
82-person taste panel checked the experimental fruit against
unmodified counterparts. Most members were able to detect novel
aromas, which the testers variously described as
"perfume", "rose", "geranium" and
"lemongrass". When put to the taste, the GM tomatoes were
preferred by 49 members of the panel, while 29 preferred unmodified
tomatoes and four expressed no preference.
The
GM tomatoes have a light red colour, because they have only half as
much lycopene as conventional tomatoes. Offsetting the low levels of
lycopene are higher levels of volatile terpenoids, which possess
antimicrobial, pesticidal and antifungal qualities.
The
work was reported on-line in Nature
Biotechnology as Davidovich-Rikanati
R et al. (2007). Enrichment of tomato flavor by diversion of the
early plastidial terpenoid pathway.
See
( http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/index.html#bc
).
