Phytopathology March 2010 • Volume 44 • Number 3
Editor’s Corner News
Exchange • Inform • Connect
Rise to Rebellion (Or, Was It Just Luck?) Doug Jardine, Kansas State University, PhytoNewsEditor@scisoc.org
Editor-in-Chief: Doug Jardine Managing Editor: Michelle Bjerkness Editor: Amanda Aranowski Design: Agnes Walker Advertising Sales: Karen Deuschle Phytopathology News (ISSN 0278-0267) is published eleven times per year by The American Phytopathological Society (APS) at 3340 Pilot Knob Road, St. Paul, MN 55121 U.S.A. Phone: +1.651.454.7250, Fax: +1.651.454.0766, E-mail: aps@scisoc.org, Web: www.apsnet.org. Phytopathology News is distributed to all APS members. Subscription price to nonmembers is $69 U.S./$81 Elsewhere. Periodicals paid at St. Paul, MN. CPC Intl Pub Mail #0969249. Postmaster: Send address changes to Phytopathology News, 3340 Pilot Knob Road, St. Paul, MN 55121 U.S.A. Submission Guidelines Address all editorial correspondence to: Doug Jardine, Department of Plant Pathology, 4024 Throckmorton Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66506-5502 U.S.A. Phone: +1.785.532.1386; Fax: +1.785.532.5692; E-mail: PhytoNewsEditor@scisoc.org. In order to ensure timely publication of your news items and announcements, please send in material six weeks prior to the date of publication. Material should be no more than six months old when submitted. Submission of materials as electronic files, via e-mail, will speed processing. For information on submitting electronic images contact Agnes Walker at awalker@scisoc.org. Deadline for submitting items for the June 2010 issue is April 15, 2010.
APS Leadership Officers President: Barbara J. Christ President-Elect: John L. Sherwood Vice President: Carol A. Ishimaru Immediate Past President: James W. Moyer Secretary: Danise T. Beadle Treasurer: Randall C. Rowe Councilors Senior, at-Large: Michael J. Boehm Intermediate, at-Large: Carolee T. Bull Junior, at-Large: Anne E. Dorrance Caribbean Division: Maria Mercedes Roca North Central Division: George W. Sundin Northeastern Division: Wade Elmer Pacific Division: Jim Adaskaveg Potomac Division: Kathryne L. Everts Southern Division: John C. Rupe Editors-in-Chief APS PRESS: Margery L. Daughtrey MPMI: Gary Stacey Phytopathology: Niklaus J. GrÜnwald Phytopathology News: Doug Jardine Plant Disease: R. Mike Davis Plant Disease Management Reports: Frank Wong Plant Health Progress: Mike E. Matheron The Plant Health Instructor: Anton B. Baudoin Board and Office Chairs and Directors APS Foundation Chair: George S. Abawi PPB Chair: Jacque Fletcher Publications Board Chair: Margaret E. Daub OEC Director: Darin M. Eastburn OIP Director: Sally A. Miller OIR Director: Brian D. Olson OPRO Director: Monica Elliott SPB Director: Scott T. Adkins Division Officers Caribbean President: Ron Brlansky Vice President: Lydia Rivera-Vargas Secretary-Treasurer: Ronald French-Monar North Central President: Lawrence Osborne Vice President: Deanna Funnell-Harris Secretary-Treasurer: Loren Giesler Northeastern President: Norman Lalancette Vice President: Russell Tweddell Secretary-Treasurer: Beth Gugino Pacific President: Walter Mahaffee President-Elect: Jay Pscheidt Secretary-Treasurer: Juliet Windes Potomac President: Christopher Dardick Vice President: Mary Ann Hansen Secretary-Treasurer: Boris Vinatzer Southern President: Boyd Padgett President-Elect: David Langston Vice President: Raymond Schneider Secretary-Treasurer: Donald Ferrin
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The title of this column refers to the 2001 New York Times bestseller Rise to Rebellion by famed author-historian, Jeff Shaara. As I read the Letter to the Editor in the January issue of Phytopathology entitled, The Society That Almost Wasn’t: Issues of Professional Identity and the Creation of The American Phytopathological Society in 1908, by Paul Peterson and Karen Beth Scholthof, I was reminded of the struggle of the Founding Fathers and the dramatic saga of the birth of the United States of America. While certainly no one’s life would be on the line for treason in the December 1908 meeting held at the USDA building in Washington, DC, as was the case for John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, et al., as they met in Philadelphia in 1776, the strong differences of opinion among Doug Jardine the plant pathologists at that meeting mirrors the disagreement among the Founding Fathers as to the wisdom and necessity to declare independence from England. So, too, our society’s founders were faced with separation—should a separate phytopathological society be formed? In their recent letter, Peterson and Scholthof write, “After a lively discussion, the committee’s recommendation to create a society was put to a full vote. It passed by a margin of 32 to 12, again demonstrating that there was considerable objection to forming this new society.” If you have not yet read their letter, I encourage you take the time to do so. Rather than being members of The American Phytopathological Society, we could easily have all been members of the Botanical Society of America or members of Section G of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as these were potential homes for plant pathologists suggested by some of the dissenters. What if the dissenters had prevailed? I would encourage everyone looking for a good read to seek out Shaara’s book and its sequel, The Glorious Cause, set during the Revolutionary War and written from the point of view of George Washington, Nathanael Greene, Ben Franklin, British General Charles Cornwallis, and many others. Shaara makes it clear that, while patriotism, courage, and determination played important roles in the struggle for American independence, in the end, luck may have been the deciding factor in victory. Undoubtedly, we too are lucky that the separatists at that 1908 meeting won out, thus paving the way to create the society, that now, as we enter our second 100 years, has become “the premier society dedicated to high-quality, innovative plant pathology research.” n Update on the APS Initiative continued from page 33
Federal funding for an NPMGS is needed to preserve these irreplaceable and invaluable resources. A viable and well-coordinated national system that safeguards access to the diversity of plantassociated microbes and enhances their utility in the scientific community will facilitate research and education focused on a wide range of practical problems. The NPMGS will consist of distributed, expert-curated, taxon-specific repositories at various locations, linked through a searchable common cyber-database that is networked and quality-monitored by a coordinated administrative framework and supported by a central physical repository of back-up collections. This cost-effective system will ensure that reference strains are not lost, but remain accessible by the broader scientific community. The infrastructure for this national system will be connected to active, existing research programs at federal and academic institutions through a joint venture between the federal government initiative, existing structures, such as the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System, and existing university and industry programs. Protecting these resources is core to our mission to benefit science and society. We need your help if we are going to be successful in creating the NPMGS. Please advocate for this initiative with your colleagues, supervisors, administrators, and members of congress. Your success stories and missed opportunities related to culture collections can be extremely helpful in our advocacy efforts, especially if they relate to major federal initiatives (e.g., food safety, human health and safety, food security, biofuels, etc.). Please share any ideas with us that will make our case for funding stronger in Washington. Contact Rick Bennett (rbennett@uark.edu), Jacque Fletcher (jacqueline.fletcher@ okstate.edu), or Kellye Eversole (eversole@eversole.biz) with questions or comments and to find out how you can help bring the NPMGS to fruition. n