OPENING ADDRESSES

As a chairman of the Organizing Committee I have the honour and the great pleasure to welcome all participants of the VI International Symposium on Flower Bulbs, organized under the patronage of the International Society for Horticultural Science.

We are very much satisfied that over 100 participants from 17 countries decided to join our Symposium.

We are greatly honoured by the presence of our distinguish guest Professor Szczepan Pieniazek - Honorary Member of the International Society for Horticultural Science, past President of ISHS, acting member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, former Director of our Institute in 1951 – 1983, the primary motivator for the Initiation of the organization and development of the floriculture research unit at our Institute.

I express my heartfelt appreciation for Professor Pieniazek coming and talking to us today.

Cordially welcome Professor Edward Lange - present Director of our Institute.

Flower bulbs are a well established group of experimental plant science which at present is going through a period of exciting progress. This is because more and more refined tools in plant physiology, biochemistry, molecular biology, plant pathology, breeding and genetics are developed.

Scientific activities of the Symposium include fundamental and applied research in the following areas: regulation of growth and development, metabolic aspects of growth and development, production systems and techniques, plant protection, disease, resistance and testing, propagation in vitro, ecology, taxonomy and conservation, selection, breeding and genetics.

We promise you to do our best for this Symposium to create a friendlly atmosphere and good opportunity for scientific discussion, exchange of ideas, and creation of personal contacts between people from various countries.

I wish you a profitable and pleasant stay in our country.

Marian Saniewski,
Chairman


Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is indeed my great pleasure and honour to welcome you on behalf of the International Society for Horticultural Science to the VIth International Symposium on Flower Bulbs. I have been connected with Skierniewice since 1946 when I started my research in pomology. Even before that time professor E. Chroboczek was developing research in Skierniewice in vegetable crops. We both felt that in order to make Skierniewice the Polish capital of horticultural research, ornamental plants must be represented here. Research on ornamental plants was so far done at the large Research Institute of Plant Breeding in Radzików close to Warsaw. This Institute was so busy with such important crops as rye and wheat, potatoes and clover that it has not sacrificed any great part of its resources to research on flowers.

I started molesting the Minister of Agriculture asking him to transfer ornamental plant research to Skiernlewice and to give more funds for its development. The Minister answered with the old Polish proverb: "There is no time to feel sorry for roses when forests are ablaze". I was not discouraged and I kept molesting the Minister. He finally lost his patience and decided to give me a slap. Every year we have had at the Research Institute of Pomology an annual meeting attended by all research staff members of our Institute including its 12 field stations and about fifty to a hundred best fruit growers. We always invited the Minister to the meeting but, as a busy man, he came very seldom. He was usually sending the Director of the Research and Extension Department as his representative to read his message. This year he asked the Director to prepare his message and to express in it his disappointment in the work of our Institute as far as our extension work was concerned. The director was my former student. He came to me greatly embarrassed and told me what the Minister told him to do. Instead of being worried I was happy to hear that. I asked him to be very stern in the evaluation of my work. He was rather surprised but has promised to do just that.

When he read the Minister's message at the meeting a stir and a commotion started among the listeners because it was known how good our Institute was in extension. Next day I went to the Minister. I told him that I understood from his message that he was dissatisfied with my work. I offered therefore my resignation from directing the Research Institute of Pomology. I knew very well that the Minister was greatly satisfied with my work. He expressed his satisfaction many a time. He understood now that he hurt me deeply by his message and he decided to make it up. "Well - he said - I have been thinking lately about the question of ornamental plants research. Perhaps you are right fighting for it. All right, I shall transfer it to Skierniewice but I do not think that ornamental plants deserve to have a status of a separate institute. I shall include them in your Institute and change its name from the Research Institute of Pomology to the Research Institute of Pomology and Floriculture. I shall give additional, adequate funds to develop research in floriculture".

This is a rather anecdotic story of developing floricultural research in Skierniewice but it is a true story. As a result the development of floricultural research was rather fast and satisfactory. Only three research staff members specializing in floriculture came to Skierniewice in 1969. The group increased by 1990 to close to 150 including 50 with higher education.

As some of you may know Poland is passing through a deep economic depression that started in 1990. All research institutions and universities in the country are badly affected by the depression. The budgets are greatly reduced and so is the staff, by fifty percent or more. The funds for research in floriculture were also reduced and this is not the end. Just the same the ornamental plant research gained a status of one of the three branches of horticulture, comparable to pomology and vegetable crops research.

If there is a cut in floricultural research funds the cut is not much more severe than in pomology or vegetable crops. Nobody says now that there is no time to be sorry for roses when the forests are ablaze.

World economists did not learn how to avoid depressions altogether but they have a firm belief that depressions are now not so deep as the depressions of the late nineteen twenties and that they will not last so long. Let us hope that they are right and that our economy Including floriculture will flourish soon again. Remember the bulb. When summer is over and hard winter approaches the leaves and the flowers of the plant wilt and die. The bulb however, survives even the harshest winter. When the spring weather returns it pushes forth, it develops new leaves and new flowers, even more abundant and more beautiful than a year before.

Szczepan A. Pieniazek,
Honorary Member of ISHS


Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Secretary-General of the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), Ir. H. H. van der Borg, has asked me to represent ISHS at the opening session of this VI International Symposium on Flowerbulbs. As chairman of the ISHS Working Group on Flowerbulbs I have accepted this task with great pleasure.

During the preparation of this Symposium I have become impressed by the enthusiasm of the members of the Organizing Committee. The result of their activities is a well - balanced programme that covers more aspects of bulb research than ever before. The organizers have managed to include at a short notice sessions on taxonomy and nature conservation, which were originally meant to be part of a separate symposium organized in The Netherlands by the (American) International Bulb Society (IBS). I want to thank our Polish colleagues for their active co-operation in combining the two symposia. By doing so they have turned the sudden cancellation of the IBS Symposium into an opportunity to make our ISHS Symposium the meeting place for bulb researchers of all disciplines.

During the Board Meeting of the ISHS Working Group on Flowerbulbs, later this week, the draft version of the ISHS Bulb Research Directory will be presented. It lists the names and addresses of nearly 200 scientists in more than 20 countries, together with their research subjects. The Bulb Research Centre at Lisse, The Netherlands, will send a copy of the updated directory to everyone whose name is included. I hope you will all help us to keep the list up-to-date.

Once again, I thank the Organizing Committee for all their efforts to offer us such a promising programme, and I wish you all a fruitful and pleasant Symposium.

Robert J. Bogers,
Chairman,
ISHS Working Group on Flowerbulbs