The American Phytopathological Society
Office of International Programs
OIP Newsletter
August
2001
Kitty F. Cardwell, Email: KCardwell@srrc.ars.usda.gov & kittycardwell@hotmail.com.
Tel: (504) 610 6906
From
the desk of Rick Bennet, OIP Director
It’s been an exciting 12 months in international
plant pathology. This year promises to be even more interesting. OIP Advisory
Board members, through their specific disciplines in plant pathology, have been
active in the global arena and are highly visible members of APS in the
international community of plant pathologists. OIP continues to support
pathologists from around the world through ongoing activities and several new
initiatives summarized below. Please check the OIP website on the APS homepage
for more information about OIP.
This
is my last APS meeting as Director of OIP. Its been a rewarding 4 years for me
personally, but its time to give someone else an opportunity to serve APS in
this capacity. I’ll continue to be involved in OIP activities and plan to be
available when called upon. I’ll never lose my interest in international plant
pathology nor forget the friends I’ve made in OIP. I don’t want to be evasive,
but as of this date, APS Council is considering confirmation of the OIP
Director-Elect who will be confirmed at the 2001 annual meeting.
CURRENTOIP NEWS:
OIP Advisory Board Members: Congratulations to the
following on their confirmation by the Committee-on-Committees for another
3-year term to the OIP Advisory Board:
Ed
French, CIP, Lima; Jennifer McBeath, U. of Alaska; Greg Forbes, CIP, Quito;
Randy Ploetz, U. of Florida; Lowell Black, AVRDC, Taiwan; Robert Zeigler,
Kansas State U;
Kitty Cardwell, USDA CSREES, Wash. DC; Bill Brown,
Colorado State U.
These
members join current OIP Advisory Board members: Jim Steadman, Norm Schaad,
George Abawi, Jesse Dubin, Al Paulus (ex officio-Foundation), and Steve Nelson,
(ex officio-Headquarters). The OIP Director, with approval by the OIP Executive
Committee, appointed several interested APS members to serve on OIP committees.
They are: Frank Tainter, Clemson University; Don Huber, Purdue University; and
Mohamed Badadoost, University of Illinois. These new committee members join
current members: Lawrence Datnoff, Solke DeBoer, Tom Mew, and Dave Sands. For
more information about the OIP, see: www.apsnet.org/members/oip.
JANE Award:
OIP
received 17 proposals for the 2001 year cycle of the John and Ann Neiderhauser
Endowment (JANE). This is the highest number of proposals ever submitted. The
technical advisory committee (TAC) of the JANE recommended to Foundation that
the proposal be accepted from PROINPA Foundation entitled, “Bolivian Genetic
Resources for Sustainable Management of Potato Late Blight” submitted by Julio
Gabriel. Foundation approved the recommendation, and awarded $10,000 from the
JANE to support this project. Annual reports submitted by previous JANE award
recipients indicate the endowment is successfully supporting excellent research
in plant pathology. For further information see: www.apsnet.org/member/oip/jane.asp.
Ed
French
OIP Support to the APS
Caribbean Division:
OIP sponsored two participants to the 2000 Caribbean Division
(CD) meeting in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Oct 31-Nov. 3, 2000. APS
Council approved supplemental funding to OIP to support these participants. OIP
was represented by Director, Rick Bennett, and OIP Board members, Jim Steadman
and Ed French. The OIP booth was displayed at the CD meeting and was a focal
point of interest by CD attendees. OIP also provided support to the 2001 CD
meeting, which took place in Varadero, Cuba, June 11-15, 2001. Ed French
represented OIP at this CD meeting, which was attended by approximately 150
pathologists from Cuba, other Caribbean countries and the U.S. OIP offered to
co-sponsor the 2002 CD meeting in Guatemala.
Jim Steadman
APS Group Membership:
In
the hope to strengthen APS international connections, OIP promotes the APS
Group Membership Plan. The Group Membership Plan is designed to facilitate
access and attract pathologists in universities or institutions in developing
countries. Under the plan, one membership fee can be used to register up to
five pathologists employed by a governmental or non-governmental agency, or
university in a developing country. The
member who organizes the application will be the only one to receive the publications
that come with the membership and will arrange to share them with the other
members. Each member of the group is eligible for APS Press journals and books
at reduced cost, lower publication page charges, reduced registration costs for
annual meetings and courses, and access to online journals at special member
rates. Currently there are 56 Group Membership Plans in effect representing 8
countries. OIP is working with institutions in Cuba and other countries to
expand the program. OIP also contacted a number of International Agricultural
Research Centers of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR) to encourage participation in the plan. For more information
about the Group Membership program, and to find an on-line application form
see: www.apsnet.org/members/oip/group.asp.
International Travel Fund
for Early Career Scientists: OIP and Foundation are implementing a new travel
award. The International Travel Fund for Early Career Scientists is being
established to assist pathologists from developing countries to attend APS
annual meetings. The fund will be used to pay travel costs and registration
fees for APS annual meetings. OIP is developing the guidelines to implement the
program, which will be announced in the December 2001 OIP Newsletter. The first
award is expected to be granted in 2002. Foundation is offering to match all
funds raised by OIP up to $22,500. OIP Advisory Board member Ed French made a
significant pledge of $10,000 to the fund. This gift ensures the fund will
achieve its goal. Many thanks to Ed for his generous donation.
OIP Booth and 2001
Discussion Session: The OIP booth will feature a display of activities from the APS
Caribbean Division in addition to the regular display of OIP programs and committees.
As always, we expect the booth to serve as a central meeting place to visit
with members interested in international pathology. Please make an extra effort
to stop by often to represent OIP.
DON’T
MISS the OIP discussion session entitled: “Importance of Plant Pathology in
Global Trade,” scheduled for Monday, August 27 from 2:00-4:30PM in room 251-F.
OIP has an excellent group of panel members including: Dennis McGee, Iowa State
University; D. Mathre, Montana State University; Bill Fry, Cornell University;
and Bill Brodie, USDA-ARS. OIP board member, George Abawi will moderate. This
is a timely and controversial topic, which is expected to receive a lot of
attention at the annual meeting. Many thanks to George for organizing such a
distinguished group of panel members.
Threatening Pathogen List: OIP is cooperating with an
APS special ad hoc committee to assess the threat of non-indigenous plant
pathogens to the U.S. The goal of this effort is to establish a list of
non-indigenous pathogens, which are not currently inside the U.S. either
because they have not arrived yet or have been eradicated but which still pose
a significant threat. The list would be a valuable resource to regulatory and
action agencies, and others interested in foreign plant pathogens. OIP will
hold a special meeting to discuss this issue, scheduled at 10:30AM on August 29
(room to be announced) in Salt Lake City.
Library Assistance Program: The OIP Library Assistance Program has been active
in 2001. With Bill Brown spearheading the effort, journals have been donated by
APS members and disbursed to several deserving institutions abroad. Cleo D’Arcy
donated her APS journals to the Universidade Extadual de Norte Fluminense in
Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil. Larry Apple, North Carolina State University,
donated his APS journals to an institute in Adana Turkey whose library was
destroyed by fire. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara approved use of APO for shipping
the journals and OIP agreed to pay shipping costs. Journals have also been donated
to OIP from Art Grybauskas, University of Maryland, who has been maintaining
hard copies from the bookcase of Paul Steiner, who recently passed away. OIP is
looking for suitable recipient libraries for Art’s contribution. Kitty Cardwell
made a gift of her collection of 15 years of Annual Reviews Disease journals to
the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture on her departure from that
institute. It is the most complete set of these reference materials available
in Benin Republic.
OIP has developed a set of guidelines to offer APS journals
CD-ROM. Developing country institutions that meet the criteria are considered
to receive APS CD-ROMs at minimal cost. For more information about the library
assistance program see: www.apsnet.org/members/oip/library.asp or
contact wbrown@lamar.cdostate.edu.
2001
APS Meeting Events
OIP Advisory
Board Luncheon: August 25, 2001, 12:00-1:30pm; Room 150-B
OIP Open
Meeting: August
25, 2001, 1:30-5:00PM; Room 150-B
OIP Discussion
session: August
27, 2001; 2:00-4:30 in Room 251-F
OIP Advisory
Board Breakfast: August 29, 2001, 7:30-10:30am; Room
150-D
Meeting announcement: International Workshop on
Dry Bean Rust and Common Bacterial Blight; 4 - 8 March 2002 Game Valley, near
Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu - Natal South Africa. Contact: James R. Steadman jsteadman1@unl.edu
or Talo Pastor-Corrales pastorm@ba.ars.usda.gov
by September 1, 2001 to indicate interest in attending.
International Plant Pathogens: Some plant pathogens create a problem on an international scale. The
first pathogen to be highlighted in an OIP Newsletter will actually be a weed,
but it is also a parasite with an intimate host/parasite interface. Striga species are parasitic weeds that
are stimulated to germinate by, and attach to the roots of their hosts. They
parasitize during the below-ground phase of development and then emerge to
produce 100,000’s of seeds per plant. Because of the parasitic specificity,
this weed problem is most often dealt with by plant pathologists. Striga asiatica was accidentally
introduced to the USA in the 1960’s where it spread and affected corn in close
to 50,000 acres the Carolinas. Millions of dollars have been spent in the
attempt to eradicate it.
David Sands gives us a
whimsical view of this serious plant health constraint:
STRIGA
The seeds captured by a puff of wind
escaped their primal pod.
Scattering themselves on the
fertile soil,
then waited, quiescent in dormancy.
Moved to germinate only on that velvet
signal,
endogenous
clocks set in motion,
Seeking,
tubelike to their host,
clasping,
bent on parasitism.
Tuned
to synthesize only their own,
never
sharing,
And
never waiting, knowing that
their
host is in a terminal state.
OIP Member Spotlight: Who are the people that
make up the Office of International Programs and why were they interested in
joining the office in the first place? The OIP is for plant pathologists who
have interest in international development and offer their services around the
world. They come from within and outside of the USA and offer their expertise
and experience whenever and wherever they are needed. There are many avenues by
which international interest can be expressed and service given. So in each
newsletter this space will be used to spotlight one member of the OIP to reveal
and recognize their involvement.
Robert Zeigler
Robert Zeigler earned his B.Sc.
from the University of Illinois in 1972, after which he joined the Peace Corps
and taught high school science in a small school in rural Zaire. Upon his
return from Zaire he married Crissan, and subsequently earned an M.Sc. from
Oregon
State University
in Botany and Plant Pathology (Forest Ecology), then a Ph.D in Plant Pathology
from Cornell University. Their first child, Nicholas, was born in Ithaca. His
doctoral thesis was on the Super-elongation disease of cassava, with fieldwork
conducted at the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) in Cali,
Colombia. Following completion of his Ph.D., he moved with his family to
Burundi, where he headed a small maize improvement program for about three years.
Their second child, Claire, was born under the light of a full moon in a small
rural mission clinic in Burundi (but, that is another story). In 1985 the
family moved back to Cali to take a position at CIAT where Bob served as rice
pathologist for seven years and as Rice Program Leader from 1986 to 1992. His
research focused on rice hoja blanca virus, bacterial sheath brown rot of rice,
and especially, rice blast disease. Their third child, Alison Rose, was born in
Cali in the midst of some difficult times between the government and the
narcotics industry. In 1992 the family moved to the Philippines after Bob took
a position as pathologist and Program Leader at the international Rice Research
Institute. There his research focused on rice blast disease and he was able to
test a number of hypotheses related to the nature of durable resistance and
population structure and dynamics of the blast pathogen in traditional rice growing environments. The term
"myco-tourism" was coined by jealous colleagues to describe his
research in the Indian Himalayas. In 1999, the Zeigler family moved to
Manhattan Kansas, after Bob took up the position of Head of the Department of
Plant Pathology and Director of the Plant Biotechnology Center at Kansas State
University. Most recently Bob is leading an effort to establish a Global
Comparative Cereals Genomics Initiative to link US cereals genomics researchers
to cereals improvement programs in International Agricultural Research centers.
UPDATE on OIP and other INTERNATIONAL SERVICE
AWARDS
Lester W. Burgess: is the OIP nominee for APS fellow in 2001 and will receive the award
in Salt Lake City. Professor
Burgess received his PhD in 1968 from the University of Sydney. He is currently
Executive Dean, Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Sydney.
He
has had a career-long research interest in the biology and control of soilborne
fungal plant pathogens of temperate and tropical crops. The major research
focus has been on the biology, mycogeography, taxonomy and pathology of Fusarium.
The
research on Fusarium has involved
collaborations with colleagues in the USA (Pennsylvania State (the late Paul E.
Nelson) and Kansas State (Professor John Leslie) Universities. These
collaborations have led to many research publications, major revisions of
Fusarium taxonomy and the presentation of over ten training laboratory
workshops on the identification of Fusarium
species. Research on Fusarium has also included collaboration with colleagues
in South Africa, Italy and Denmark a well as regular involvement with the
European Fusarium Symposium.
Professor
Burgess also has had a long-interest in the development of fungal plant
pathology in S.E. Asian countries. This has included formal training at the
postgraduate level of students from this region on AusAid Scholarships as well
as intensive training through laboratory workshops, field survey training and
master classes.
While
Dean he has reorganised the overseas research and development program. This
included the development of a special program of research training, across
disciplines, for Vietnam where he has been collaborating in plant pathology
development since 1992. This program has included intensive short courses
involving laboratory and field training both in Vietnam and Australia as well
as formal PhD and MScAgr programs. In addition, his group is involved in a
major research and development project on fungal plant pathogens of fruit,
vegetable, maize and coffee crops, funded by the Australian Centre for
International Agricultural Research. A wide range of diseases and previously
unrecognized soilborne diseases has been documented during this project. He
discovered the sexual state (Gibberella
moniliformis) of Fusarium
verticilloides for the first time in the field, in Vietnam and recently
discovered the basidiocarp (Atlelia)
of Sclerotium rolfsii, previously
considered to be very rare in nature. Thus the collaboration with Vietnamese
counterparts has led to a range of interesting scientific findings. His group
is also assisting with the development of extension material (in Vietnamese)
for farmer use, implementing a training program for provincial crop protection
officers and developing a CD-ROM on soilborne fungal diseases, with AusAid
funding.
His
group is also involved in a major research, development and training project in
northern Sulawesi, Indonesia, again funded by ACIAR. This program similar to
that in Vietnam is focussed on clove decline, vanilla stem rot and a range of
diseases of vegetables and maize.
Bob Zeigler: Congratulations also go to
OIP Advisory Board member, Bob Zeigler of Kansas State University (see
spotlight) for being awarded the APS International Service Award for
outstanding contributions in international agriculture. We look forward to
working with Bob on many critical pathology issues around the world.
Randy
Ploetz, Chair, OIP awards committee:
Congratulations to
Bob Zeigler and Lester Burgess for their nominations and awards this year!
Bob was not considered by the
Awards and Honors Committee in 2000 since the AHC read the guidelines for the
award to exclude those who were not employed by an organization in their home
country while conducting their work overseas. The OIP awards committee, i.e.
Randy Ploetz, Rick Bennett and Kitty Cardwell wrote a concept letter to the AHC
arguing that APS members who were employed overseas, such as in international
institutes or agri-businesses, should also be considered. The petition was
supported by Jacque Fletcher, Larry Madden and Neal van Alfen and accepted by
the AHC committee chair Isaac Barash. Thus, Bob’s candidature was successful
and he will receive this honor this year at the APS meetings in Salt Lake City.
Please
give some thought and input to OIP regarding other deserving APS members who
should be nominated. Send nominations to Randy Ploetz at: rcp@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu