ISPP Newsletter 41 (9) September 2011

News and announcements from all on any aspect of Plant Pathology are invited for the Newsletter. Contributions from the ISPP Executive, Council and Subject Matter Committees, Associated Societies and Supporting Organisations are requested.

 Editor: Brian J Deverall  (E-mail)

Members of Associated Societies of ISPP can receive e-mail notification of Newsletter updates by joining the ISPP mail list

In this issue:

• ISPP and the Economic Impact of Plant Diseases on Food Security
• National Energy Ladders and their Carbon Implications
• The Global Horticulture Initiative
• Phytopathology Congress in France
• Plant Pathology in Canada 1970-2008
• Latest News about Plant Pathology from the UK
• New Races of Wheat Stem Rust in the Ug99 Group
• Gene Technology in Horticulture and its Australian and Global Implications
• The New Edible Aroids Network
• Lettuce and Verticillium wilt disease
• Determining Import Conditions for Materials into Australia
• Acknowledgements
• Coming events

During the meeting of the ISPP Task Force on Global Food Security (TF on GFS) in Darwin on the evening of 27 April 2011, all participants confirmed the importance of better assessing the economic impact of plant diseases on food security as a critical factor for raising the awareness of policy makers and donors. This is not an easy task and generalizations are not possible for all crops and locations in the world. It was agreed that this needed to go beyond having plant pathologists coming up with solutions acting as economists. It was recognized that agricultural economists should be doing the job in close collaboration with plant pathologists.

One possibility about how this might be achieved is to establish a new International Working Group (IWG) that includes the Chair of the ISPP TF on GFS and members, plus other plant pathologists who have been involved in such assessments, together with agricultural economists and specialists from such organizations as FAO or IFPRI.

The task of the IWG would be to:

• Brainstorm on the needs and the parameters that could be used for disease impact assessments in various developed and developing countries. This should be based on successful work already done (as recently in Australia for wheat diseases) but also on the feasibility of use of such parameters;  

• Liaise and work closely with the TF on GFS, active ISPP Subject Matter Committees and Societies such as those in the USA, Australasia and the Netherlands, to get their input on the parameters suggested by the IWG, based on their experience and crops/diseases they deal with;

• Agree on a set of basic parameters and harmonized methodologies to be taken into considerations in developed and developing countries for estimates of the impact of plant diseases; these would be accepted and recommended by ISPP, and provide a basis for common understanding and preliminary assessment values;

• Liaise and work closely with the SP-IPM, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centers, ISPP Associated Societies and other organizations to orient and develop training programs for plant pathologists in the developing countries in crop loss assessments, based on the agreed harmonized parameters and methodologies;

• Work with the above mentioned organizations to find some funding, if and when needed, to implement some economic impact assessment activities in various countries to test their effectiveness.

This may or may not be successful in getting the desired results, knowing that the factors involved are very vast and variable in different regions, years and cropping systems. However, it would be a good exercise for connecting and partnering beyond plant pathologists, paralleling the successful procedures used in the ISPP journal “Food Security”.

I would appreciate opinions on this idea or provisions of other suggestions. I believe that ISPP, preferably through the TF on GFS, should lead such an initiative.

These ideas were put together by ISPP Vice-President Wafa El Khoury (now with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and no longer with FAO) after discussion with Julie Nicol and others, and presented for the ISPP Newsletter by Brian Deverall.

A recent paper by Paul J Burke of the Crawford School of Economics and Government at the ANU, Canberra, Australia is “The National-Level Energy Ladder and its Carbon Implications”. It presents evidence from a large sample of countries for the years 1960-2005 on how the energy mix evolves during the process of economic development. It supports the existence of an energy ladder that nations climb as they develop. Poor economies are largely dependent on biomass for their energy. Economic development typically sees countries switch toward commercial fossil fuels, and also some hydroelectricity. At high income levels, countries increasingly adopt low-carbon energy sources such as nuclear power and renewables such as wind power. In terms of carbon emissions, the net effect of the ladder is that economic development causes an initial carbonization, and a later decarbonization, of the energy system.

Different countries climb the ladder in different ways. Fossil fuel-rich countries are much less likely to adopt nuclear power and renewables, and to achieve reductions in the carbon intensity of their energy use. Most of the world’s population are in countries on the upward slope of the carbon intensity of energy use curve, where systems are likely to become increasingly dependent on carbon-intensive fossil fuels as per capita incomes increase. A doubling of India’s 2005 per capita income is likely to involve an increase in the carbon intensity of energy consumption of up to 45%. Economic expansion in poorer countries is likely to require a more substantial increase in the carbon intensity of energy. The carbon intensity of China’s energy use is likely to reduce over coming years as China begins to reorientate its energy mix toward natural gas, nuclear power and renewable energy. China’s overall energy use and CO2 emissions will continue their upward trajectories for the foreseeable future in a business-as-usual development scenario.

Globally, the findings suggest that economic growth will continue to increase CO2 emissions in most countries for the foreseeable future unless strong climate change mitigation initiatives are implemented. Encouraging rapid movement up the ladder to nuclear power, renewables, and natural gas, where appropriate, may be a means to reduce the carbon intensity of energy use and total CO2 emissions expected for many developing countries. Carbon pricing would facilitate such movement. There may be a role for developed countries to provide assistance to developing countries to aid early adoption of low-carbon energy sources and technologies.

The results also draw attention to the formidable challenge of weaning fossil fuel-rich countries off their dependence on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, as even at high income levels these countries tend to remain heavily reliant on fossil fuels for their energy needs. Given this ongoing dependence on fossil fuels in many countries, the development of affordable lower carbon fossil fuel energy technologies is likely to be an indispensible part of an optimal climate change mitigation response.

The full text of the paper plus references, tables and figures may be obtained by clicking here.

See the news of coming events and many other activities under the initiative by clicking on GlobalHort Newsletter. Among the events in the near future are:-

• VII World Avocado Congress, Cairns, Australia, 5-9 September 2011. (www.worldavocadocongress2011.com)

• PROFAV 2011: Promotion of Fruit and Vegetables for Health, Arusha, Tanzania, 26-30 September  (www.globalhort.org/network-communities/horticulture-health/profav2011/)

• 10th African Crop Science Society Conference 2011, Maputo, Mozambique, 10-13 October (www.fanrpan.org/documents/d01140/)

The Initiative is a worldwide program to foster more efficient and effective partnerships and collective action among stakeholders. It is organized in a consortium, a group of national and international institutions organized to collaborate in research, training, and technology-generating activities designed to meet mutually-agreed objectives. The issues at stake transcend national and regional boundaries, so the Initiative gives a chance to target global concerns in horticulture. GlobalHort is a not-for-profit organization registered in Belgium and Tanzania.

The Initiative sees a world where horticulture is prized by the poor for its contribution to present and future generations. The final beneficiaries are resource-poor households in developing countries working within the agricultural sector and food processing industries. Special efforts will be made to empower women, who are the principal workers. Resource-poor households will also gain improved access to affordable and nutritious vegetables and fruits.

The Initiative acts as a global facility to coordinate horticultural research for solutions in health, productivity and safety in sustainable environments and to uplift the quality of life of the poorest world populations.

Dr Frederic Revers, Secretary, Société Française de Phytopathologie, advises that the 8th Congress of the French Society for Phytopathology will be held in Paris, in June 2012. See “Coming Events” and also the Congress web-site for details of the scientific and organizing committees, the draft program, the registration fees and some key dates for administration.

Plant Pathology in Canada 1970-2008

This is the title of a new history of recent plant pathology published by the Canadian Phytopathology Society. An organising committee comprising Denis Gaudet, Verna Higgins, Guillemond Ouellette, Lu Piening, Richard Stace-Smith, Bud Platt, Jack Sutherland, Roy Whitney and Ron Wall has been involved in gathering material. The book has an introduction by Denis Gaudet.

Clicking here will lead to more information and means of obtaining the book.

The latest edition of the newsletter of the British Society for Plant Pathology number 65 for the UK summer of 2011 and edited by Jennifer Hodgetts has just appeared on the BSPP web-site. It carries a lot of information on the activities of the society and reports on conferences, mostly international, held in the last year.

Two of the conferences were sponsored by the BSPP in the UK. One was on the “Molecular Biology of Plant Pathogens” in September 2010 held beside the River Dart in Devon and reported on by Professor Murray Grant of the University of Exeter. The second was the “8th International Conference on Pseudomonas syringae pathovars and related pathogens” held in Oxford, UK, as August turned into September in 2010 and reported on by Dawn Arnold, Robert Jackson and Gail Preston. Two special aspects were the involvement of John Mansfield and the visions of Harry Potter in the background.

The other conferences covered were held outside the UK, and these were reported in excellent detail and style mainly by advanced students attending on travel grants. They were:-

“International Climate Change Adaptation Conference and the 2nd International Conference on Climate Change” held in Queensland, Australia, in June/July 2010.

“9th International Symposium on the Microbiology of Aerial Plant Surfaces” held in Oregon, USA, in August 2010.

“18th Congress of the International Organization for Mycoplasmology” held in Chianciano Terme, Siena, Italy, in July 2010.

“Joint 30th ESN Symposium and 5th Phylloxera Symposium” in Vienna, Austria, in September 2010.

“The 10th International Symposium on Cytochrome P450 Biodiversity and Biotechnology” in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, in October 2010.

“The 15th Congress of the Spanish Society for Phytopathology” in Vitoria, Spain, in late September 2010.

“International Advances in Plant Virology” in Arnhem, the Netherlands, in September 2010.

A ProMED-mail post of 24 August 2011 reported on a paper by F Mukoyi et al. in Plant Disease (2011) 95, 1188, entitled “Detection of variants of wheat stem rust race Ug99 (Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici) in Zimbabwe and Mozambique”.

The occurrence and migration of variants of race Ug99 is concerning for world wheat, seven variants now having been characterized in the Ug99 lineage. Similarity in the races in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Mozambique suggests the exchanged of inoculum within the region and explains the detection of a new race in South Africa in 2009. Trajectory models showed winds originating in Zimbabwe in October 2009, where the rust was observed, then passing directly over KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa within 48 to 72 hours. The new race was confirmed from collections in KwaZulu-Natal in November 2009. This provided new geographical records for an Ug99-related race and put Southern African cultivars at risk and warned about an increased threat in the southern hemisphere.

David Moore, General Manager, R&D Services, Horticulture Australia Limited, advised about a seminar on this topic recently. The implications were focused on Australia but they have international relevance. The key points made during the presentations are available for downloading as follows:-

“The orchard of 2025” by Andrew Smith;

“Current status of R&D initiatives in gene technology” by Dr Bruce Lee;

“Tomorrow's horticulture” by Dr Jim Peacock; 

“Global status of gene technology in horticulture” by Paula Fitzgerald;

“Case study - Development of GM bananas” by Rob Harding;

“Advances in molecular marker technologies for accelerated breeding” by Roger Hellens;

“Trends in export markets - Implications of biotech crops” by Rosemary Richards;

There have been recent reports of leaf blight disease in cocoyams in Africa and Cameroon in particular. Cocoyam is an important food source as a root vegetable and from its large and fleshy leaves. It is a staple food in Cameroon, but is largely absent from the market this year after the blight destroyed most of last year's crop. Cocoyam is known by several names. In much of the world it is called taro but it is also known as elephant ears, while in Nigeria and much of Cameroon it is cocoyam. The disease, caused by Phytophthora colocasiae, is new to Cameroon but was already known in Malaysia and some other south-east Asian countries.

Grahame Jackson of PestNet (www.pestnet.org) reports that PestNet moderators have offered to assist Cameroon, and that advice can now be obtained from the edible aroids network (www.ediblearoids.org) which started in March 2011. Resistant plants from the Pacific, from the South Pacific Countries’ CePACT, are now in several countries in West Africa where taro leaf blight has caused devastation.

The centre of origin of lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is thought to have been the Near East and the Mediterranean region, but now it is widely cultivated as a salad plant. The USA is the second greatest producer after China and about half of its product comes from the central coast area of California. A recent paper describes how lettuce in that area has become affected by Verticillium wilt caused by Verticillium dahliae. The 2011 paper is Fifteen Years of Verticillium Wilt of Lettuce in America's Salad Bowl: A Tale of Immigration, Subjugation, and Abatement. It is by Zahi K Atallah, Ryan J Hayes and Krishna V Subbarao and published in Plant Disease 95 (7), 784-792.

Until the 1990s, lettuce was considered resistant to Verticillium dahliae. In 1994, a farm in the Pajaro Valley, California, reported a loss of the entire lettuce crop and Verticillium wilt was dismissed as the potential cause, despite the fact that V. dahliae was the only pathogen isolated from infected plants and its micro-sclerotia were recovered from soil samples. In 1995, V. dahliae was isolated from infected plants from the same fields and Koch's postulates were completed. Since 1995, increasing levels of Verticillium wilt incidence have been reported. In 1999, it was observed on lettuce in the neighbouring Salinas Valley, where most lettuce production in the USA occurs. By 2010, disease foci had coalesced, and fields in about a 50 km stretch of the prime lettuce production area had developed the disease.

Australia is an island continent with a natural biota very different from that of much of the rest of the world, and many precautions are now taken about bringing materials into it. The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) is charged with the responsibility of managing these precautions.

AQIS has an import conditions database known as ICON. This is a simple and convenient way to access information about Australian import conditions for more than 20,000 plant, animal, microbial, mineral and human commodities. It shows if a commodity intended for import to Australia needs a quarantine permit and/or treatment or if there are any other quarantine prerequisites.

The ICON home page leads to its search system and also to key information, and is claimed to be easy to use. ICON is updated immediately when changes are made to import information, so it is a quick and easy way to stay in touch with import requirements. Importers are advised that it is their responsibility also to ensure compliance with the requirements of all other regulatory and advisory bodies associated with importing commodities to Australia.