ISHS Acta Horticulturae 359: V International Symposium on Plum and Prune Genetic, Breeding and Pomology
OPENING ADDRESS |
| Author: | S. Sansavini |
| Abstract:
Let me welcome you to the 5th ISHS Plum & Prune Symposium (Genetics, Breeding and Pomology) and at the same time, thank Dr. Walter Hartmann for his outstanding organisational efforts and the Institut for Obst-, Gemüse- und Weinbau of Hohenheim University in Stuttgart for its generous hospitality. It is only fitting that, four years after Bordeaux, Germany play host to this Symposium as it can boast many fine researchers in this field and, not least, is the world's fourth leading plum producer. I was very favourable impressed that there are over 40 papers and posters on the agenda and the working sessions will therefore be animated as much by the topics as by the number of presentations. For, in addition to the primacy of genetics, the discussion of which here will be heightened by the new biotechnologies and their contrast to the traditional, yet far from outdated, methodologies, and the potentiality of interspecific hybrids as both rootstocks and new genotypes, this Fifth Symposium covers such issues as ecology, performance, environmental adaptation, management (with the emphasis on orchard design, training systems, nutrition) and, last but not least, plant health, especially in regard to plum pox, other viruses and MLO. As a sometime plum researcher, allow me to note that I have occasionally remarked the rather arbitrary extension of meaning, and hence possible source of confusion, accorded to the definition of plum, a situation that in my opinion derives from the diversity inherent in plum growing throughout the world. For example, the multi-purpose European plum, P. domestica, is dominant in northern areas while in southern ones like Italy and California, or in those of the southern hemisphere like Chile and South Africa, the Japanese plum (P. salicina), or better the group of interspecific hybrids (including P. cerasifera) gets the lion's share thanks to large-sized attractive fruits. What, then, is a plum? Perhaps the best way to answer is to preface, as most authorities do, the noun plum by the appropriate adjective, such as "European", or to follow it by the species, such as P. domestica. Otherwise, the world plum alone must bear the weight of an entire range of species, and often scientists in northern climes use it for the European plum only and those in southern ones for the Japanese. Nor should we forget that the ISHS and some of its most authoritative members - R. Bernhard, V. Cociu and S.A. Paunovic - were the first to include "Plum and Prune" in the title of the Symposium. This 5th Symposium comes at a time of resurgent scientific interest in the plum, which is expanding as to both production and consumer market in a number of countries. Indeed, the plum group's Symposium has brought together over 60 researchers and growers from 17 countries, a formidable and distinguished gathering under any circumstances. Let me conclude my remarks by thanking Dr.
G. Salesses, the Chairman of the revived Plum and Prune Working Group, the Organising Committee, and, once again, Dr.
Hartmann and his co-workers, and wish you all a very successful Symposium.
I am confident too that the proceedings to be published in Acta Horticulturae will provide a fitting conclusion to your efforts.
I also hope that those in attendance who are not yet members of the ISHS will take this occasion to join us. | |
