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A message from Graham Jellis - BSPP President 2008 |
May
I wish you all a very Happy New Year, and one full of exciting
developments as we continue to tackle the many challenges which plant
pathology presents to us. I have just been to the Oxford Farming Congress
where we were reminded a number of times that by the middle of this
century the world is going to have to produce twice as much food as it
currently does, at a time when climate change is going to make some areas
of the world far less productive than at present. We can ill afford,
therefore, to let productivity and quality be reduced by disease. You will know that we have been thinking about the most effective way to tell others about our discipline and our Society; we have recently advertised for somebody to take on the role of Publicity Officer. We had a number of strong contenders for the post and I am delighted to be able to tell you that Chris Ridout of the John Innes Centre has been appointed. Chris has considerable experience in this type of work and has been involved in a broad spectrum of pathology research.
Those of you that know me well will know that my career in plant pathology has had a strong crop focus, starting with potatoes, then break crops (particularly pulses and oilseed rape) and currently cereals and oilseeds. I intend to reflect this in my presidential year. As the international congress is being held in Turin this summer, I intend to keep the Presidential meeting shorter than usual –two days instead of three – and it will focus on cereal pathogenesis. The programme is nearly complete and some excellent speakers have been lined up. Details will be on the website shortly. The venue is Queen Mary College, London, and the dates are the 16th and 17th December. Because of the closeness to Christmas, hotel rooms in London will book up fast, so if you want one of the relatively modestly priced ones we have managed to reserve, I suggest that you book early. I do hope to see as many of you there as possible.
To supplement this meeting, at least two one-day crop-focused workshops are being organised, one on potato diseases and the other on diseases of break crops. The planning for the potato meeting is already quite well advanced. It will be held at SASA, Edinburgh, on 2nd July and will include a keynote talk from a past president (Stuart Wale), a competition for young potato pathologists with a prize from the British Potato Council, and an opportunity to visit plots used to train and examine potato inspectors, seeing diseases you probably didn’t even know existed! This is a very appropriate year to hold a potato meeting as it is the UN Year of the Potato, and we have been authorised to use the logo for this event. The break crop workshop will be held at the PGRO, near Peterborough. Again there will be the opportunity to visit field plots. More details will be available shortly.
Perhaps you are disappointed that none of these events feature the crop (in the broadest sense of the word) of particular interest to you. If so, I encourage you to talk to me about it. If you are willing to get involved, perhaps something can be done!
Thanks to past presidents and the officers of the Society we continue to thrive, with excellent world-class journals, a Board keen to get things done to take the Society forward, and a strong financial base. Do take advantage of the benefits available to members, including financial support to attend meetings and to develop your career.
I hope to see many of you during the next year, particularly at one of our meetings and/or the international congress.
Graham Jellis