ISHS Acta Horticulturae 431: Tospoviruses and Thrips of Floral and Vegetable Crops
PREFACE |
| Author: | C. George Kuo |
| Abstract:
In recent years, tospoviruses have received international attention because they cause major crop losses throughout the world due in part to the increased worldwide movement of plant materials. These thrips-vectored viruses have a wide host range that involves more than 500 species of plants in more than 50 families and includes food, fiber, and ornamental crops. Some of these plants are reservoirs for both the vectors and the viruses and may contribute to epidemics in crop plants. The last meeting on virus-thrips-plant interactions of tomato spotted wilt virus took place 5 years ago in the United States. During the past 5 years, many research advances on tospoviruses and their vectors have been made. The proposal for the 1995 symposium was initiated by T.Y. Ku of the Council of Agriculture of ROC and R.H. Lawson of the US Department of Agriculture. Taiwan was an ideal location for the symposium because the Asia-Pacific region has recently emerged as a hot spot for tospovirus research. Through the generous support of the Council of Agriculture of ROC, the symposium drew 115 scientists from 20 countries to Taiwan. The participants engaged in active discussions on: epidemiology, identification, and molecular biology of tospovirus; plants-tospovirus interactions; thrips-tospovirus interactions; conventional and modern breeding for host-plant resistance; and integrated tospovirus-thrips management. The symposium also provided the opportunity to develop increased cooperation among scientists from around the world to combat the disease. These proceedings represent the current progress of research as well as directions for future research. I wish to thank the authors, reviewers, and advisory committee for their cooperative efforts to complete these proceedings. On behalf of the organizing committee, I would also like to express our gratitude to the staff of the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center and the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute without whom this symposium would not have materialized.
In particular, my special thanks go to Michael Graham, MG Science Editing, Writing, and Publishing, for his assistance with technical editing and production, and to my secretary Kitty Hong for her invaluable secretarial support and painstaking efforts in retyping various drafts of the proceedings. | |
