INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER ON PLANT PATHOLOGY

ISPP Newsletter 39 (12) December 2009

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: 

• Letter from ISPP President
• Revitalizing Agricultural Research
• XV International Botrytis Symposium
• Joint Asian and Australian Conference for Plant Pathology
• China Approves Biotech Rice and Maize
• A Phylogenetic Tree of Nematodes
• TaroPest
• Guelph Symposium on Climate Implications
• Bacterial Signal for Action of a Rice Gene
• Professor Position in Plant Pathology
• Compendium of Wheat Diseases and Pests
• International Horticulture Congresses
• Coming Events

Letter from ISPP President
 
ISPP President Lodovica Gullino has written an end-of-year letter to ISPP members and it may be seen by clicking here.
 

Revitalizing Agricultural Research
 
Gebisa Ejeta delivered the 2009 Norman Borlaug Lecture at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA, on 12 October 2009 when he received the World Food Prize.
 
An expanded version of the lecture entitled “Revitalizing agricultural research for global food security” is in the December 2009 issue of the ISPP journal “Food Security” (Volume 1, Part 4) edited by Dr Richard Strange. Dr Peter Scott, Chair of the ISPP Food Security Taskforce, describes this version as a remarkable piece promoting the global case for agricultural research. 
See:  http://www.springerlink.com/content/121319 .
 
For information about the World Food Prize which is located at Ames, Iowa, see:  www.worldfoodprize.org .
 
Gebisa Ejeta is a native of Ethiopia, where he graduated with a BSc in Plant Science from Alemaya College, before earning his MSc and PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Purdue University, USA. He then started his professional career as a Principal Plant Breeder at ICRISAT stationed in Sudan (1979–83), where he developed and released the first sorghum hybrid in Africa and catalyzed the establishment of a private seed industry for its application. He joined the faculty at Purdue University in 1984, where he currently holds the position of Distinguished Professor of Plant Breeding & Genetics and International Agriculture, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA.
 
He has made major contributions to the development of drought tolerant and parasitic weed resistant sorghums, and he facilitated the deployment and adoption of these crop cultivars in a number of African countries. He also has made significant contributions in human capacity and institution building efforts in several countries. He has served on review panels and advisory boards of leading agricultural research and development organizations including the international agricultural research centers, the Rockefeller Foundation, the FAO and a number of national and regional organizations in Africa. He is currently a member of the Science Council of CGIAR.
 
 
XV International Botrytis Symposium
 
This will be in Cadiz, Spain, over 6 days in May/June 2010 (see: “Coming Events”), and will cover cutting-edge advances in all major aspects. The Symposium will present leading industrial, research and academic experts in the field, through lectures and posters. There will be in-depth assessment of the latest important developments in Botrytis research by plant pathologists, biologists, chemists and biochemists, biotechnologists, geneticists and other allied professionals.
 
Cadiz has an ancient history in the southern-most part of the Iberian Peninsula. The Phoenicians visited these lands more than three thousand years ago.
 
 
Joint Asian and Australian Conference for Plant Pathology
 
The 4th Asian Conference for Plant Pathology and 18th Australasian Plant Pathology Society Conference will be held in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from 27-29 April 2011.
 
Dr Caroline Mohammed of the University of Tasmania is President of the Australasian Plant Pathology Society for 2009-2011. Dr Lucy Tran Nguyen of the Northern Territory Department of Regional Development, Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources is the Convenor of the Conference and Professor Mark Sutherland of the University of Southern Queensland is the Chair of the Scientific Program Committee. See APPS Register of Members at  http://www.australasianplantpathologysociety.org.au/ .
 
The Executive and Secretariat of the Asian Association of Societies for Plant Pathology (AASPP) is:
 
President - Professor Susamto Somowiyarjo, Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Gadjah Mada University, Bulaksumur Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
 
Vice President – Professor Shinji Tsuyumu, Faculty of Agriculture, Shizuoka University, 836 Ohya, Shizuoka-city, 422-8529, Japan.
 
Vice President – Professor David Guest, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
 
Secretary – Dr Han Cheng-Gui, Department of Plant Pathology, China Agricultural University Yuanmingyuan Xilu, Haidian, Beijing, China.
 
Secretariat Office Manager -  Dr Liquin Zhang, Department of Plant Pathology, China Agricultural University Yuanmingyuan Xilu, Haidian, Beijing, China.
 
Treasurer – Professor Eun Woo Park, Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-921, Republic of Korea.
 
Professor Wenhua Tang, former ISPP Vice-President and inaugural Secretary-General of AASPP, is the informal link between ISPP and AASPP. 
 
Currently the Asian Association includes the Australasian Plant Pathology Society, Chinese Society for Plant Pathology, Indian Phytopathological Society, Israeli Phytopathological Society, Japanese Phytopathological Society, Korean Society of Plant Pathology, Malaysian Plant Protection Society, Pakistan Phytopathological Society, Philippine Phytopathological Society, Plant Protection Society of Singapore, Sri Lanka Society of Plant Pathology and Thai Phytopathological Society. For addresses, see the ISPP web-site at :  http://www.isppweb.org/ .
 
 
China Approves Biotech Rice and Maize
 
Dr Clive James, Chair of ISAAA and author of the ISAAA Annual Brief on Biotech/GM Crops, wrote the following. Within one recent week China's Ministry of Agriculture granted two biosafety certificates, and approved biotech Bt rice, (rice is the most important food crop in the world that feeds half of humanity), and biotech phytase maize, (maize is the most important feed crop in the world). The two approvals have momentous positive implications for biotech crops in China, Asia and the whole world.
 
Bt rice and phytase maize should be seen as only the first of many agronomic and quality biotech traits to be integrated into improved biotech crops, with significant enhanced yield and quality, which can contribute to the doubling of food, feed and fiber production on less resources, particularly water and nitrogen, by 2050. The approval by China of Bt rice can be a global catalyst for both the public and private sectors from developing and industrial countries to work together in a global initiative towards the noble goal of "food for all and self sufficiency" in a more just society.
 
See:  http://www.isaaa.org/kc/  for the ISAAA Crop Biotech Update of 4 December 2009.
 
 
A Phylogenetic Tree of Nematodes
 
A new presentation of a phylogenetic tree of nematodes has just been published in “Nematology” where it can be found at  http://www.brill.nl/nemy  in the on-line issue number 6 in 2009.
 
The paper is “A Phylogenetic Tree of Nematodes based on about 1200 full-length Small Subunit Ribosomal DNA sequences” by Hanny Van Megen, Sven van den Elsen, Martijn Holterman, Gerrit Karssen, Paul Mooyman, Tom Bongers, Oleksandr Holovachov, Jaap Bakker and Johannes Helder (2009). It is in Nematology 11 (6), 927-950.
 
The authors acknowledge that nematode systematics have always been volatile because of the scarcity of informative morphological and anatomical characters. They have used molecular data from a wide range of nematode taxa allowing for an enormous expansion of the number of characters. They state that their work is biased towards terrestrial nematodes living in moderate climate zones. Their analysis did not cause major changes in the subdivison of the phylum into clades. At the family level and below, they observed a marked congruence between morphology and their molecular analysis. The authors conclude that convergent evolution appears to be one key explanation for the seemingly persistent volatility of nematode systematics.
 
 
TaroPest
 
TaroPest is an illustrated guide to pests and diseases of taro in the South Pacific and is published by ACIAR. The authors are Carmichael A, Harding R, Jackson G, Kumar S, Lal S N, Masamdu R, Wright J and Clarke A R.
 
Taro (Colocasia esculente), a major food crop in the South Pacific, is subject to significant losses from pests and diseases. TaroPest has been developed as a guide to these pests and diseases in the South Pacific. TaroPest consists of a field guide and a self-running CD-ROM, which is interactive and contains information additional to that presented in the manual. The field guide is designed to be a portable printed version to be used in conjunction with the CD-ROM.
 
The publication date was 2008 and the publication code is MN132. ISBN: 978 1 921424 55 6 (print version) and 978 1 921434 56 3 (online version). The price is $AUD$27 (inc. GST) from National Mailing & Marketing, PO Box 7077, Canberra BC ACT 2610, Australia. ACIAR will provide complimentary copies of its publications to libraries, institutions, researchers and administrators with involvement in agriculture in developing countries in ACIAR’s operating area, and to scientists involved in ACIAR projects.
 
See:  http://www.aciar.gov.au/publication/MN132 .
 
 
Guelph Symposium on Climate Implications
 
A Symposium on “Climate Change and the Implications for Plant Protection” is being held at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, from 25-27 May 2010. It will explore the impact of climate change on the global agriculture industry, with special emphasis on the real and urgent issues facing the industry today, the potential impacts of climate change on agricultural pests, pathogens and weeds and ways to mitigate and adapt to the inevitable changes facing the industry.
 
The Keynote Speaker is Dr Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, USA, where she leads the Climate Impacts Group investigating the interactions of climate on systems and sectors important to human well-being.
 
See:  http://www.cropprotection.open.uoguelph.ca .
 
 
Bacterial Signal for Action of a Rice Gene
 
The Crop Biotech Update of 6 November 2009 draws attention to “A Type I–Secreted, Sulfated Peptide Triggers XA21-Mediated Innate Immunity” by Sang-Won Lee, Sang-Wook Han, Malinee Sririyanum, Chang-Jin Park, Young-Su Seo and Pamela C Ronald (2009) and published in Science 326 (5954) 850–853  http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1173438 . 
 
Xa21 is a rice gene which confers immunity to most strains of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae as shown in 1995/96 papers from Pamela Ronald and associates. Now an analysis has been done of biologically active fractions of a bacterial supernatant. This led to identification of a 194–amino acid peptide designated Ax21 as the activator of XA21-based immunity. A sulfated 17–amino acid synthetic peptide derived from a region of Ax21 was found to be sufficient for activity. This latter peptide is 100% conserved in all analyzed Xanthomonas species.
 
Since the 1995/6 papers, work by others on many systems has introduced the terms pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) for plant cell surface receptors on the basis of their ability to directly recognize molecules that are conserved across a large class of microbes. These microbial molecules are termed pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), or microbe-associated molecular patterns (MAMPs). This current paper confirms that XA21 is a PRR and that Ax21 is a PAMP.
 
The paper also has an interesting discussion of the concepts and use of PAMPs, pathogen avirulence genes, PRRs and disease resistance genes.
 
 
Professor Position in Plant Pathology
 
A vacancy for the position of Professor and Chair in the Plant Pathology Department at The University of Florida is on the ISPP web-site.
 
See:  http://www.isppweb.org/about_vacancies.asp .
 
Other positions at the University of Florida are also on this site.
 
 
Compendium of Wheat Diseases and Pests
 
The third edition of this APS compendium is edited by William W Bockus, Robert L Bowden, Robert M Hunger, Wendell L Morrill, Timothy D Murray and Richard W Smiley and will be dated 2010. It has been completely updated since the previous edition published in 1987. Over 70 plant pathologists and entomologists have contributed. New in this edition are 32 new chapters and a major section on insects and mites covering 16 of the most important to control.
 
Wheat Diseases and Pests Image CD is a companion to the book also to be dated 2010. This CD is a part of the image collection series and contains all 269 images from the compendium. It can be easily browsed through images categorized by causal agent. Captions are included with the images as well as in a separate text file. The CD is compatible with Mac and PC operating systems.
 
See:  http://www.shopapspress.org/ .
E-mail:  aps@scisoc.org  or write to APS PRESS Customer Service, 3340 Pilot Knob Road, Saint Paul, MN 55121, USA. Dial toll free in the USA and most of Canada: 1-800-328-7560. Otherwise, telephone +1-651-454-7250 or fax +1-651-454-0766.
 
 
International Horticulture Congresses
 
Roderick Drew sent seasonal greetings and a reminder about the 28th International Horticulture Congress being held in Lisbon, Portugal, in August 2010 (see “Coming Events”). Professor Drew is President-Elect of the 29th International Horticulture Congress to be held in Brisbane, Australia, in 2014. The web-site for this second Congress is under development at  http://www.ihc2014.org .
 
 
Coming Events
 
International Advances in Pesticide Application in Cambridge, UK.
5-7 January 2010.
See:   http://www.aab.org.uk/ .                  
 
7th International Workshop on Grapevine Trunk Diseases in Santa Cruz, Chile.
17-21 January 2010.
See:  http://www.icgtd.org/7IWGTD.html .
 
Global Biosecurity 2010, Safeguarding Agriculture and the Environment, at the Brisbane Convention Center, Queensland, Australia.
23 February-3 March 2010.
See:  www.globalbiosecurity2010.com .
 
Phytophthora Diseases in Forest Trees and Natural Ecosystems – 5th Meeting of the IUFRO Working Group in Rotorua, New Zealand.
7-12 March 2010.
Queries to Pam Taylor, phone: +64-7-3435727, Fax: +64-7-3480952.
Email:  pam.taylor@scionresearch.com .
 
IUFRO Kuala Lumpur 2010, “Sustainable Utilisation and Conservation of Forests in the Genomics Era” - a joint conference of IUFRO Working Parties on Population, Ecological and Conservation Genetics and on Genomics in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
7-12 March 2010.
See:  http://www.iufrokualalumpur2010.org/ .
 
14th International Congress on Infectious Diseases in Miami, Florida, USA.    (about medical matters)
9-12 March 2010.
See:  http://www.isid.org/14th_icid/ .
 
Plasmodesmata 2010, 7th International Conference, Sydney, Australia.
21-26 March 2010.
See:  http://www.bio.usyd.edu.au/pd2010/ .
Contact:  pd2010@bio.usyd.edu.au .
 
IX International Mango Symposium in Sanya, Hainan Island, China.
8-12 April 2010.
See:  http://www.mango2010.cn .
 
III International Symposium on Loquat, Antakya-Hatay, Turkey.
3-6 May 2010.
See:  http://loquat2010.mku.edu.tr/ .
 
Climate Change and the Implications for Plant Protection Symposium at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
25-27 May 2010.
See:   http://www.cropprotection.open.uoguelph.ca/ .
 
XV International Botrytis Symposium in Cadiz, Spain.
30 May-4 June 2010.
See:  www.xvbotrytiscadiz10.com .
 
The 12th International Conference on Plant Pathogenic Bacteria 2010 at Saint-Denis, Ile de La Reunion.
7-11 June 2010.
See:  http://www.icppb2010.org/ .
 
13th Congress of the Mediterranean Phytopathological Union in Rome, Italy.
13-18 June 2010.
See:  http://www.cra-pavevents.com/ .
Contact:  mpucongress.2010@entecra.it .
 
International Plant Virus Epidemiology Symposium in Cornell, New York, USA.
20-24 June 2010.
See:  http://www.isppweb.org/ICPVE/ .
Contact: Professor Alberto Fereres at  afereres@ccma.csic.es .
 
11th International Symposium on the Genetics of Industrial Microorganisms in Melbourne, Australia.
28 June–1 July 2010.
See:  http://www.gim2010.org/ .
 
12th IUPAC International Congress of Pesticide Chemistry in Melbourne, Australia.
4-8 July 2010.
See:  http://www.iupacicpc2010.org/ .
 
XVII Congress of the Federation of European Societies of Plant Biology (FESPB) in Valencia, Spain.
4-9 July 2010.  
See:  http://www.geyseco.es/fespb/principal.php?seccion=general .
Contact:  fespb2010@geyseco.es .
 
3rd International Symposium on Tomato Diseases, Ischia, Naples, Italy.
25-30 July 2010.
See:  http://www.3istd.com/ .
 
34th International Carrot Conference in Kennewick, Washington State, USA.
26-28 July 2010.
See:  http://www.pnva.org/carrotconf/ .
Contact: Lindsey DuToit  dutoit@wsu.edu .
 
Plant Biology 2010, Montréal, Canada.
31 July-4 August 2010.
See:  http://www.aspb.org/meetings/pb-2010/ .
 
9th International Mycological Congress (IMC9) “The Biology of Fungi” in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.
1-6 August 2010.
See:  http://www.imc9.info/ .
 
19th World Congress of Soil Science in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
1-6 August 2010.
See:  http://www.19wcss.org.au/ .
 
APS Annual Meeting 2010 at Opryland, Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
7-11 August 2010.
See: http://www.apsnet.org.
 
6th Australasian Soilborne Diseases Symposium at Twin Waters, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.
9-11 August 2010.
See:  http://www.asds6.org/ .
 
XXVIII International Horticultural Congress (IHC2010) in Lisbon, Portugal.
22-27 August 2010.
Contact:  info@ihc2010.org .
See:  http://www.ihc2010.org .
 
The 8th International Conference on Pseudomonas syringae and Related Pathogens in Oxford, UK.
31 August-3 September 2010.
See: www.reading.ac.uk/Psyringae2010.
Contact: syringae2010@plants.ox.ac.uk .
 
3rd AAB Symposium on Potato Cyst Nematodes in Newport, UK.
14-15 September 2010.        
See:   http://www.aab.org.uk/ .
 
British Crop Protection Council Congress 2010 at ExCeL London, UK.
1-3 November 2010.
See:  http://www.bcpccongress.com/ . 
 
Climate Change and Plant Disease Management Meeting in Évora, Portugal.
10-12 November 2010.
A collaborative effort by KNPV, APS and EFPP.
 
International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance in Vienna, Austria.  (medical matters)
4-7 February 2011.
See:  http://imed.isid.org/ .
 
International Congress of Postharvest Pathology in Lleida, Spain.
13-15 April 2011.
 
18th Biennial Australasian Plant Pathology Meeting and 4th Asian Conference for Plant Pathology at the Darwin Convention Centre, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
27-29 April 2011.
Watch: http://www.australasianplantpathologysociety.org.au/.
 
XVIII International Botanical Congress – 2011 in Melbourne, Australia.
24–30 July 2011.
See:  http://www.ibc2011.com/ .
 
Joint Meeting of APS and IAPPS in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
6-10 August 2011.
See:  http://www.apsnet.org .
 
APS Annual Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
4-8 August 2012.
See:  http://www.apsnet.org .
 
10th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP2013) in Beijing, China.
25-30 August 2013.
Contact: Professor You-Liang Peng, Department of Plant Pathology, College of Agriculture and Biotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, PR China. Phone: +86-10-62733607; Fax: +86-10-62733607.
e-mail:  president@cspp.org.cn  .
See:  http://www.icppbj2013.org/ .
 
29th International Horticulture Congress in Brisbane, Australia.
2014.
See:  http://www.ihc2014.org .