Potato Pathology One Day Offered Papers Conference Continuing the successful format of one day meetings, the BSPP held a joint one day meeting in September with the Scottish Mycology and Plant Pathology Club, on the subject of potatoes - a crop dear to many a Scottish pathologist's heart. The venue was Edinburgh and the delegate list saw a fairly equal spread of pathologists from Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales. The day was held in the newly built Michael Swann Building at Edinburgh University, where plush upholstery and thick carpets compensated to some extent for the fearsome array of gadgetry and controls that faced speakers on the platform. The programme had been put together by Mark Hocart, with the first session looking at blight and the afternoon encompassing everything from powdery scab to bacterial wilt. Dr Jim Duncan of SCRI chaired the morning session, introducing it with birthday congratulations to the SMPPC which was celebrating 21 years since it's first meeting. The Club, which was formed on a 'temporary' basis has always provided an informal gathering of minds where questioning can often be intense but always constructive. Many students have come through the club and today it still has a good mix of members from post graduates to very active founder members. The joint meeting with the BSPP was an excellent coming of age party. Stuart Carnegie from SASA gave the keynote speech, and reported on the links between disease transmission and tuber health - a wide ranging talk that put the rest of the day in context. Jenny Day of The University of Wales presented data on the population displacement of Phytophthora infestans in England and Wales which suggested that within commercial sites sexual recombination was extremely rare, but that at non commercial sites, which tended to have more ' unique' fingerprint isolates as well as more of the A2 type, sexual recombination could occur. Rachel Toth later presented a paper on the Scottish situation to complete the picture, and concluded that the A2 type was also uncommon in the Scottish situation. Ruairidh Bain (SAC) then talked about the possibilities of adjusting blight fungicide inputs in response to varietal resistance and concluded that it was possible to exploit the better resistance of some varieties by reducing fungicide inputs. Carrying on with the blight theme Moray Smith of CSL presented a paper alarmingly entitled 'Are Smith periods still relevant'. His conclusion was that they are, but with the proviso that they work because they fail less often and are therefore more prone to over commitment than alternative in crop weather systems. Nigel Hardwick chaired the afternoon session where the pathogens discussed were many and varied. Rob Clayton (SAC) discussed the effects of condensation on disease development in stored crops and his work with small purpose built chambers has demonstrated that the infectivity and development of silver scurf increase as temperature and duration of condensation increase. A paper by Qu Xinshun of University College, Dublin, was presented by James Kavanagh and charted their ultimately successful quest to develop a PCR method for the detection of powdery scab in host tissues and soil. Paul Matthews of the University of Edinburgh then presented his work on the systemic nature of the blackleg pathogen and potential endophytic antagonists and concluded that the bacteria would move up within the plant from the site of inoculation but not downwards. He also demonstrated that Enterobacter could be a potential antagonist to Erwinia. The final talk of the day was given by Prakash Pradhanang from Lumle Agricultural Research Centre, Nepal. He discussed different methods of detecting Ralstonia solanaceum in soils and concluded that of a semi-selective medium, a tomato bioassay, pre-enriched or normal ELISA methods or a PCR reaction, the semi-selective medium and the PCR reaction were the only two methods that successfully detected even very low concentrations of the bacteria. Practical reasons therefore meant that the semi-selective medium, SMSA, was often the preferred method of detection. Many delegates lingered for a while over the posters or over afternoon tea which was taken on the upper floor of the building which offered panoramic views over Edinburgh and the surrounding hills. I am sure some looked up from the chatter to appreciate the sights, but as ever, the social side of such a meeting was almost, if not as important, as the academic and the sound of 80 or so plant pathologists after a good day was deafening! Fiona Burnett |