FOREWORD AND PREFACE

FOREWORD

Over 70 delegates from throughout the world attended the 1st International Root and Tuber Crops Symposium (Food Down Under) at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand from 9-12 February 2004. Organised jointly by Massey University and the NZ Crop & Food Research Institute the meeting began with a getting-to-know-you barbecue at Wharerata (the University’s Staff Club) on the Sunday evening, and formal proceedings commenced the following morning.

The meeting was opened by Professor Ian Warrington (Vice President ISHS), in his role as Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Massey University, while ISHS Root and Tuber Crops Section Chair Professor Stan Kays (USA) represented ISHS.

The formal opening was actually in the afternoon, and was undertaken by Hon. Damien O’Connor, New Zealand’s Associate Minister of Agriculture. He emphasised the importance of the root and tuber crops for New Zealand’s local and export economy, and the Maori links with the original transfer of the plants from South America.

A total of 42 papers were presented and ranged from a cultivar evaluation study with sweet potatoes in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, (with many of the growers clad only in penis guards), to the sophistication of crop modelling, molecular biology and flavour analysis.

The first day’s programme was oriented very much towards crop production, with the objective of attracting growers, while the following days had a more "scientific" content.

New Zealand has a history of commercialising new crops (eg kiwifruit), and a number of papers at this meeting offered an introduction to a number of less common tuber crops being researched in New Zealand, including Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius), Oca (Oxalis tuberosa), Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus), Konjac (Amorphophallus konjac), and Japanese Taro (Colocasia esculenta). There was a technical tour on the Tuesday afternoon to the important volcanic ash soil root crop production area at Kiwitea near Palmerston North. This enabled delegates to view crops of potatoes for processing, for fresh market, and also a seed crop of a new Crop and Food bred variety “Moonlight’ with both late blight and nematode resistance.

One unique part of the tour visit was to the largest commercial planting in the world (at Halfords Exotics) of the South American Tuber crop “Oca” —some 35 ha. The company has bred and selected and been granted Plant Variety Rights for a number of exciting clones—red, yellow and also bicoloured, and is also developing another South American tuber plant "Ulluco" as a crop for New Zealand. We learnt that the major problem with these crops is that the tuberisation is linked closely to a 12 hour photoperiod, which limits the range of environments in which they can be successfully grown.

Following the symposium several of the invited speakers addressed grower meetings. Attracting top quality key note speakers, while at the same time keeping conference fees to an acceptable level requires sponsorship. The symposium thus provided a valuable link between industry and science. Finally we chose the right week for the meeting, because the following week the Palmerston North district had it’s "100 year flood" (over 200mm of rain fell in 24 hours) and was inundated with raging rivers, damaged bridges, and flooded farms.

Mike Nichols

PREFACE

The papers contained in this volume of Acta Horticulturae report the Proceedings of the "First International Symposium on Root and Tuber Crops – Food Down Under". 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. 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 reviewers. They have made a significant contribution to improving the quality of this publication.

The ISHS Board of Directors