Abstract:
FOREWORD
The Environmental Stress and Horticulture Crops Symposium held in conjunction with the XXVI International Horticultural Congress, August 11-17, 2002 in Toronto, On-tario, Canada attracted over 130 participants from 32 countries.
The program spanned 4 days of oral, poster and workshop sessions with roughly 60 of those presentations pub-lished in this volume.
It was an excellent opportunity to meet old friends and make new acquaintances that represented a truly international collection of horticultural scientists.
Plant environmental stress has always been a topic of significance, particularly now with increasing world water issues, expanding land salinization, as well as low and high temperature extremes associated with an increasingly unstable climate.
Economic impact due to environmental constraints affects a broad spectrum of crops which were addressed in this symposium: from herbaceous annual to woody perennial plants, using ecologic to molecular approaches.
Classic and new techniques were discussed which in-cluded: the use of microarrays, and proteomics; metabolomics; gene induction and trans-genics; QTL’s and molecular markers; fluorescence and infrared thermal imaging; mu-tants; traditional breeding, screening and in vitro selection; improved cul-tural/management techniques; and new approaches to viability testing.
Research on a wide range of plant responses involved: whole plant and anatomical alterations; photosyn-thetic changes; phytochrome; water relations; phytohormones; apoptosis; oxidative stress, anti-oxidants and flavonoids; nitrogen and calcium effects; lipid metabolism; yield and reproductive development; cross-adaptation and heat shock proteins; ion homeostasis; osmoprotectants; root and rootstock effects; sunburn on fruit crops; and dormancy in buds, seeds, bulbs and tubers.
As Ben-Ami Bravdo indicated, Exploring physiological mechanisms enables utilization of recent advanced technologies for optimizing production and quality under diverse environmental conditions.
Further understanding of molecular mechanisms in-volved in plant response to environmental stress should result in increased production and in improved quality due to a better response to advanced cultural practices.
We are sincerely appreciative of our fellow editors, organizing committee, session chairs, keynote speakers, oral and poster presenters as well as all attending delegates.
Congratulations to Simon Mng’omba, Bunda College, Malawi for winning best student poster. Finally, we are grateful to our sponsors: International Society for Horticulture Science (ISHS); Canadian Society for Horticulture Science; American Society for Horti-culture Science; the ISHS Commission on Tropical and Sub-Tropical Horticulture, ISHS Fruit Section – Environmental Physiology and Water Relations in Woody Crops Working Group; the ASHS Working Groups on Dormancy and Environmental Stress; DowAgro-Sciences Canada Inc.; Ag-West Biotech Inc.; Geoff Hughes (head), Richard St-Pierre, Gloria Gingera, Sharon Stevens and Carolyn Ouellet of the Department of Plant Sciences, College of Agriculture, University of Saskatchewan.
K.K. Tanino, L.V. Gusta and M. Wisniewski
Co-Conveners
PREFACE
The papers contained in this volume of Acta Horticulturae report the proceedings of a symposium on “Environmental Stress and Horticulture Crops”. Keynote speakers and authors of selected contributed oral and poster presentations were given the opportunity to submit a manuscript for publication.
These manuscripts were reviewed by the symposium editors and other referees.
Only those papers judged suitable for publication following the authors consideration of reviewer suggestions appear in this volume of Acta Horticulturae.
The ISHS acknowledges and appreciates the contribution of all editors and review-ers.
They have made a significant contribution to assuring the quality of this publication.
The ISHS Board of Directors
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