GILB:
Global Initiative on Late Blight

Greetings to the archived edition of the North American Potato Late Blight On-line Workshop. This international event was carried by The American Phytopathological Society via APSnet from February 14 to April 18, 1997.

This event was an extension of a late blight workshop held in Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A., from January 8 to 11, 1997. At that meeting more than 200 participants discussed the state of late blight, the destructive disease responsible for the Irish potato famine that resulted widespread death by starvation and in the migration of more than one million Irish to the United States. A workshop was deemed timely once again because the causal fungus, Phytophthora infestans, has gone through genetic changes.The occurrence of a new race has been responsible not only for earlier and more severe annual late blight attacks, but also for the appearance of new strains of the pathogen that are resistant to some widely used fungicides. Growers and others in the United States, Canada, and Mexico have been assessing the extent of the problem and deciding on courses of action.

Papers frm that workshop were posted for the on-line event. As the on-line event progressed, interested readers provided introductions of themselves and their interests, and facilitators participated in discussion forums on late blight management, potato host plant genetics, and the fungus and the disease. Among management topics covered in the workshop are forecasting, cultural practices, IPM, regulation, and chemical control.

In the Introduction by William M. Brown, Jr., summaries of recommendations arrived at by participants of the Tucson meeting are provided. They give a good starting point for future actions in dealing with late blight problems.

Several hundred visitors logged into the APS Online Event Center during the time that Potato Late Blight was a live event. We have now provided this archived version of the material; we hope that it continues to be of value for interested readers, researchers, growers, and students