APS Press Announces

Editorial Board Members

New APS Press editorial board members began their three-year terms after the annual meeting in New Orleans. Randy Ploetz replaced Sharon Douglas as editor-in-chief and is joined by senior editors Christopher M. Becker, Gareth Hughes, Jeffrey B. Jones, and Gary W. Moorman, who fill vacancies left by retiring board members Margery Daughtrey, Tim Gottwald, and Rosemary Loria.

Randy Ploetz received his B.S. degree in forest tree production in 1974 and his M.S. degree in plant pathology in 1976, both from Purdue University. He worked at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center of the University of Florida until 1980 when he returned to graduate school in Gainesville, where he finished his Ph.D. degree in 1984 under David Mitchell. After a postdoctoral position at the North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy, he joined the faculty at the Tropical Research and Education Center in Homestead, FL; he was promoted to professor in 1996. His primary interests there are the epidemiology and management of diseases of fruit and vegetable crops and the biology and ecology of their causal agents. He has written extensively on diseases of banana, mango, and other tropical fruit crops and edited Fusarium Wilt of Banana and Compendium of Tropical Fruit Diseases for APS Press and the forthcoming Diseases of Tropical Fruit Crops for CAB International.

Randy was a senior editor for APS Press from 1995 to 2000, serving as the press liaison to the Classics Committee from 1995 to 1998 and to the Office of Electronic Communications from 1998 to 2000. His three-year term as editor-in-chief began during the annual meeting this year in New Orleans. He has also served as an associate editor for Phytopathology and as a member of the Tropical Plant Pathology Committee and member and chair of the Soil Microbiology and Root Disease Committee. He has been on the advisory board of the Office of International Programs since 1993 and serves as the office’s awards chair. He is a former president of the Florida Phytopathological Society and vice president and managing editor for refereed papers for the Florida State Horticultural Society.

Christopher M. Becker received a B.A. degree in botany from the University of Vermont, an M.S. degree in plant pathology from the University of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. degree in plant pathology from Cornell at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES). After earning his Ph.D., he worked as a research associate with grape diseases at the NYSAES. Since 1993, he has conducted field research with American Cyanamid and is now with BASF with the same responsibilities. As a field representative, he has evaluated the efficacy of new herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides. He has championed the development of Acrobat fungicide for late blight, tobacco blue mold, and several diseases of vegetables and ornamentals. He has been active in the Northeast Division of APS, including serving as president in 1998 and 1999.

Gareth Hughes is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Ecology and Resource Management at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, U.K. He received his B.A. degree in biology (1972) and Ph.D. degree in population genetics and ecology (1978) from the University of York in northern England. From 1977 to 1981, he was a lecturer in biometrics in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad. He returned to the United Kingdom in 1981 to an appointment as an agricultural systems analyst in the Crop Production Advisory and Development Department at the East of Scotland College of Agriculture in Edinburgh. In 1983, he accepted a position as lecturer in the Department of Agriculture at the University of Edinburgh and moved to his current position in 1996.

Hughes’ work involves an epidemiological approach to problems of crop loss assessment and disease management. In August 2000 at the APS annual meeting in New Orleans, he received the Lee M. Hutchins Award for his contributions to research on diseases of perennial fruits. He has served on both the Epidemiology Committee and the Plant Disease Losses Committee of APS. As chair of the latter, he organized a symposium, “Sampling for Decision Making in Crop Loss Assessment and Pest Management,” for the joint APS/ESA meeting in Las Vegas in 1997, the papers from which were published in Phytopathology. From 1991 to 2000, Hughes served on the editorial board of Plant Pathology, the journal of the British Society for Plant Pathology, and now begins a term as a senior editor of APS Press.

Jeffrey B. Jones, professor of plant pathology with specialization in the area of bacterial plant pathogens, has been on the faculty of the University of Florida since 1981. Presently he is in the Plant Pathology Department at Gainesville, FL, but prior to 1998 he was at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Bradenton, FL. He received a B.S. degree in botany from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plant pathology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. Jones was a senior editor for Plant Disease from 1993 to 1996. He edited or coedited the Compendium of Tomato Diseases and the third edition of the Laboratory Guide for Identification of Plant Pathogenic Bacteria published by APS press.

Gary W. Moorman received his Ph.D. degree in plant pathology from North Carolina State University in 1978 and was an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Suburban Experiment Station in Waltham from 1978 to 1982. He joined the Department of Plant Pathology at The Pennsylvania State University in 1983, where he is currently a full professor with responsibility for extension education and research on diseases of woody ornamentals, shade trees, and floricultural crops. In addition to teaching a graduate-level course, “Fundamentals of Phytopathology,” he offers a correspondence course for which participants can receive pesticide applicator credits as well as continuing education credits in the International Society of Arboriculture Certified Arborist Program and the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association Certified Horticulturist Program. Currently his research focuses on the characterization of DNA markers useful in Pythium species and population identification with emphasis on species that affect greenhouse floricultural crops.

APS Foundation Student Travel Grants 2001

The APS Foundation is accepting applications for its Student Travel Awards. A minimum of 20 awards of $400 each will be available to APS student members giving oral or poster presentations at the 2001 APS Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, UT (August 25-29). Students who received an award in 2000 will not be eligible again until 2002. Preference will be given to students who have never received a Foundation travel award.

Application packets must include:

1) Abstract as submitted to APS headquarters for the 2001 meeting.

2) One page letter that includes the following:

a) Describe past attendance and participation in any APS meetings (i.e., presentations, committee activities, de Bary Bowl, etc.). If you were awarded a travel grant from APS Foundation prior to 2000, include the year.

b) Briefly (one paragraph each) describe how attendance at the 2001 APS meeting would be of benefit to you and suggest three ways to improve APS (including meetings) and/or the field of plant pathology.

3) Supporting letter (one page maximum) from your major professor that includes the following:

a) Reason student is attending the meeting.

b) Scientific, academic, and creative merits of the student.

c) Any special circumstances that make attendance at the meeting solely dependent on receiving a Foundation travel award.

Applications must be postmarked by March 16, 2001. Please include an Email address in your letter, and a message will be sent confirming arrival of your application. Persons outside the U.S. and Canada who submit their application after March 1 should send it by express mail to ensure receipt by the deadline.

A 12-member Selection Committee will make the awards, with 6 representatives coming from the APS Graduate Student Committee (not eligible for an award) and 2 representatives each from academia, extension, and industry.

Also in this issue: (as a .PDF file, see link below)

• Editor’s Corner 2
• Letter to the Editor 3
• Plant Pathology Pioneer 4
• People 6
• APS Foundation 8
• Ninety-Second Annual Report 10
• APS Journal Articles 16
• Classifieds 17
• Calendar of Events 20