Whither or wither extension plant pathology?
1998; Wiley; Volume: 47; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1046/j.1365-3059.1998.00269.x
ISSN1365-3059
Autores Tópico(s)Powdery Mildew Fungal Diseases
Resumo‘You have come, perhaps rightly, to expect from each year's President an account of some solid piece of mycological work that he has done for the advancement of our science. In this I am going to disappoint you’. Not me, but E. C. Large in the opening words of his Presidential address to the British Mycological Society in 1960 (Large, 1961). Nevertheless, it is also a reflection of my position as I stand before you. Large is perhaps more widely known for his book Advance of the Fungi (Large, 1940), which was an inspiration to so many budding plant pathologists. My preoccupation with Large will become apparent as I proceed. Presidential addresses are personal, they do not have to follow a format, they can be autobiographical — in career terms, a scientific review, political, promotional and a combination of all four. This address will be a combination, rather as this conference ‘Plant pathology — global perspectives of an applied science’ is a miscellany, covering a wide range of topics. Appropriate for extension plant pathologists, for their interests are inevitably wide ranging, indeed global. I spent 26 years as an advisory plant pathologist. However, a year ago I left the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service (ADAS), the then Government advisory service, and joined the Central Science Laboratory. Which, in a sense, is the cause of the enigmatic title of my address. ‘Whither’ is an archaic word meaning to what place. And ‘wither’ has a whole host of appropriate definitions, including the pathological — blight, weaken, perish, harm, disintegrate. I am still very much an extension plant pathologist at heart and it will be mainly from this perspective that this address will be delivered. But first, what about the word extension. Outside the UK, extension is the preferred term for the means of providing advice to farmers. Extension originates from the university sector where the work of a faculty is extended into the community when, for example, farming facilities, teaching, etc. are offered outside (Jacobsen, 1983; Jacobsen & Paulus, 1990). An advisory service is one that is empowered to make recommendations. I suppose there is a subtle distinction, but in practice I believe the terms are interchangeable. In drawing up the programme for this conference I have tried to cover subjects across the whole range of plant pathological experience. The objective was to provide a forum where pathologists from different facets could hear about the latest thinking in their science and help those who teach the subject. Inevitably this address will touch on aspects of some of the lectures, as I will be following the framework of the conference. It should be regarded as an introduction rather than a duplication. Extension plant pathology is an art as well as a science. Art, amongst other things is about experience and know-how. Science is also about knowledge, but it is also about facts and data. Science, unfortunately, gives the impression that it has the capability of knowing everything there is to know about a subject given the correct experiment. Art can be a mystery. Horsfall and Cowling, in their book Plant Disease: an Advanced Treatise (Horsfall & Cowling, 1977), state that ‘art is doing: science is understanding’. Extension plant pathologists have to interact with the farming community and have to take account of the aspirations and social circumstances of the farmers and growers they deal with. Extension plant pathologists have also to be cognizant of the global context in which advice is being delivered. The art and science of plant pathology was a concern of Grogan (1987) when he discussed the proposition that there should be two types of specialist, the doctor of plant medicine, that is the general practitioner, and the theoretical scientist, the PhD. He dismisses the proposal by suggesting that: ‘Plant pathologists engaged in fundamental research have concentrated on explaining disease phenomena instead of on devising ways to avoid or prevent disease or on creating conditions in which costly and repetitive control measures are unnecessary.’ He also suggested that: ‘If science and art were separated, that disciplines such as physiology, biochemistry, genetics, etc. that can provide the new techniques and information would be lost to plant pathology.’ Are we not in danger of going the same way with molecular biology? It was my experience in Africa, following 6 years at Imperial College as both undergraduate and postgraduate student, that attracted me to extension plant pathology. Arriving in Zambia, my extension colleagues wondered why someone with a PhD wished to be an extension plant pathologist, perpetuating the pure versus applied science divide that existed at the time. With a laboratory to complete at Kabwe Research Station, in the heart of the Central Province, and my subsequent involvement with other building works on site a degree in civil engineering would have been of equal value! However, dealing with the real issues that confronted the growing of crops and the interaction with people that grew them was an important aspect of the job. The detective work required to identify the cause of a disease was of major interest. I was at university during the ‘Prague Spring’ when Alexander Dubcek spoke of the Czech brand of Communism as ‘Communism with a human face’. Extension plant pathology is plant pathology with a human face — that of the grower. The other main motivation was that I became involved in organizations concerned with overseas aid. Food production and its preservation is a major constituent of aid programs. The health of crops that produce our food should of course be the underpinning objective of plant pathologists, be they in extension or research. Previous presidents of professional societies have taken the opportunity to say something about the society of which they were president. I also wish to take a little time to run through some key dates, because not only will they put this address in context, but will also show how the Association of Applied Biologists (AAB), ADAS, the British Mycological Society (BMS), the British Society for Plant Pathology (BSPP) and the Central Science Laboratory (CSL) are all intertwined. Moore (1979) gives a very good account of the early history of the organization of plant pathology in Britain. Also, Jenkins (1990) gives some key dates in the development of the advisory service. The following is an amalgamation of these, plus a few dates of my own, to chart the development of plant pathology in the UK down the century. It is remarkable that plant pathology is not yet two centuries old. We have only just commemorated the 150th anniversary of the potato blight epidemic that afflicted Europe and particularly Ireland in 1845 (Nelson, 1995) and a century after the death of Miles Berkeley in 1889, undeniably considered the father of British plant pathology. Following the events of 1845 it was 50 years before the first professional body was established to co-ordinate the interests of mycologists. A British society specifically for plant pathologists was to come much later. 1889Board of Agriculture was set up, later to become the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Food was not added until 1955 and 1998 is likely to see a further name change. Within the Board's remit was the responsibility for providing grants to the newly emerging agricultural departments in universities. 1896The foundation of the BMS. 1904The foundation of the Association of Economic Biologists, later to become the Association of Applied Biologists in 1934. 1909Development Commissioners provided funds for education in agriculture. 1910Development Commissioners allocated funds for research. 1914Two institutes formed at Kew, one for entomology and one for plant pathology as the Plant Pathology Laboratory, to become affectionately known as the ‘Path. Lab.’. 1917The Board of Agriculture's Food Production Committee set up a subcommittee to advise on plant pests and diseases. This was a significant development in the co-ordination of national information on plant pests and diseases. 1919The BMS formed a plant pathology subcommittee to look after the interests of plant pathologists. E. C. Large, in his Presidential Address, spoke of there being now two societies, the new British Plant Pathological Society and the old BMS! 1920The Plant Pathology Laboratory moved from Kew to a converted private house in Harpenden. 1924The first conference of advisory mycologists met and was chaired by the senior mycologist at ‘Path. Lab.’— a tradition maintained until the end of the 1980s. The conference was responsible for the national formulation and co-ordination of advisory policy and was, by modern standards, a very powerful and influential committee. 1932The plant pathology subcommittee of the BMS was developed into a full committee with executive powers. 1941In his Presidential Address to the BMS, W. C. Moore proposed that, as the majority of members of the AAB and publications in the Annals were concerned with the pathology of plants, the AAB should be transformed into an Association of Plant Pathologists; this proposition was not surprisingly rejected. Also in 1941, the BMS Disease Assessment Committee was established. 1946National Agricultural Advisory Service (NAAS) was created from the county staff and the specialist disciplines. 1949W. C. Moore became Director of the ‘Path. Lab.’. The BMS Plant Disease Assessment Committee became the responsibility of the NAAS Conference of Advisory Plant Pathologists. 1950W. C. Moore set up a special unit at ‘Path. Lab.’ under E. C. Large to promote the systematic collection of quantitative data and assessment keys for individual diseases. Moore's idea was for Large's unit to provide technical service for the NAAS Disease Assessment Committee. Large was stationed at ‘Path. Lab.’ because it was not feasible for him to be stationed at a regional centre. Moore also wished to capitalize on Large's writing abilities and to edit a journal devoted to pest and disease assessment, crop loss and intelligence. 1952Publication of a new MAFF journal, Plant Pathology, edited by E. C. Large. 1961‘Path. Lab.’ moved to a new building at Hatching Green, Harpenden. 1964A key event in the formation of an independent plant pathology society took place at the International Botanical Congress in Edinburgh. At the Congress a group of senior plant pathologists proposed a new society and an international plant pathology congress; these were P. H. Gregory, S. D. Garrett, R. K. S. Wood, W. G. Keyworth, I. Isaac, Marion Watson and F. Joan Moore. 1966The Federation of British Plant Pathologists (FBPP) was born under the parental control of the AAB and BMS with Joan Moore as its first Chairman. 1968The first International Congress took place at Imperial College, London — S. D. Garrett was its Chairman, R. K. S. Wood was Secretary and B. E. J. Wheeler was the Treasurer. At the Congress the International Society for Plant Pathology was founded and R. K. S. Wood became its first President. 1970The first UK formal plant clinic was set up in Cambridge, involving plant pathologists and other crop scientists in the diagnosis and problem-solving arts of advisers. The plant clinics provided a formal mechanism for consultation with other specialists, although the diagnosis of disease and other problems had always been a priority for advisory plant pathologists. Clinics provided a focus for disease intelligence, training and diagnosis, and brought the field to the laboratory. 1971ADAS was formed from a combination of the NAAS and other MAFF specialist groups. Later in that year the Conference of Advisory Plant Pathologists set up Pathology Groups. These Groups had a great influence on the direction of research and advice. They were broad-based and included, by invitation, plant pathologists from the research stations and universities as appropriate. 1979‘Path. Lab.’ merged with the Regional Organization of ADAS, thus cementing a previous loose relationship. 1981As part of its rationalization programme of publications, Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) sold Plant Pathology to Blackwell Scientific Publications. This was the catalyst for a break-out of plant pathologists from under the combined wings of the BMS and AAB, and some members of the FBPP formed the BSPP with 169 Founder Members and took responsibility for editing Plant Pathology. B. E. J. Wheeler became the first editor appointed by the new Society. The wishes of W. C. Moore and E. C. Large for an independent society were finally realized 62 years after the formation of the subcommittee of the BMS. 1982R. K. S. Wood became the first President of BSPP. 1987Through the foresight of its founders, BSPP was able, in 1987, to buy Plant Pathology from Blackwell, thus securing the future financial viability of the Society. 1988The ‘Path. Lab.’, now the Harpenden Laboratory, was formed with other Government Research Laboratories into CSL and in 1992 ADAS and CSL became separate Agencies of MAFF. Agencies were Government owned but had their own delegated budget and management control. 1989A senior Civil Servant (C. J. Barnes) produced a review of MAFF research and development (R & D) and recommended that ‘near market’ R & D be no longer funded by MAFF but by those farmers and growers who would be the beneficiaries. 1993BSPP successfully bid to host the 1998 7th International Congress of Plant Pathology. 1996CSL co-located at single site at Sand Hutton. 1997ADAS was privatized in a management/employee buy-out. 1998A new look to Plant Pathology. The first change to the size and cover since the journal's purchase from MAFF. The cover design for 1998 is an interim measure and reflects the Society's involvement with the 7th ICPP. The FBPP was established in 1966 and was 16 years old before it metamorphosed into the BSPP. BSPP is 16 years old this year (1997), so we have reached a historic moment when the Society will soon be older than the previous body. It is therefore timely to record the previous Chairmen and Presidents of the respective bodies (Tables 1 and 2). The Federation had 14 different Chairmen, starting with F. Joan Moore and ending with J. E. E. Jenkins in 1981, who took the Federation into the new Society. Bryan Wheeler and Tom Preece were the only people to be both Chairmen of the Federation and Presidents of BSPP. It is interesting to note the split between the two organizations. In the Federation days nine chairmen were from the research area, five from the universities and two from advice. The balance for the BSPP is significantly different with seven research, six university, two advice and one information management. I think the new society has provided the better balance between the different sections of our discipline. On leaving Africa in 1973 I joined the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service (ADAS), part of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Government's advisory service for England and Wales. Other systems for providing advice to the agricultural industry operate in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and will not be commented upon in this address. ADAS was created in 1971 from an amalgamation of the Ministry's professional and technical services, including the State Veterinary Service and NAAS. This is not the place to provide a comprehensive history of the subsequent development of the Advisory Service, but some details of the early days can be found in accounts by Moore (1942), Croxall (1967), Moore (1979) and Fletcher (1989). ADAS contained the science and agriculture disciplines necessary to obtain intelligence on the industry, to identify research priorities and dispense advice on all aspects of farming. Specifically, the science disciplines included microbiology, nutrition chemistry, analytical chemistry, entomology, soil science and plant pathology, each being co-located at a single site in each of the main regions. The regional centres were near the original NAAS centres, which were at universities with an agricultural faculty, such as Cambridge, Reading, Newcastle, Leeds and Aberystwyth, or research institutes such as Long Ashton for Bristol or an agricultural college such as Harper Adams for Wolverhampton. The only exception was Cardiff. In addition, there were subcentres and out-stations in areas of intense arable and horticultural activity — such as the Lea Valley in Hertfordshire, Wye in Kent, Kirton in Lincolnshire, Evesham in Worcestershire and Starcross in Devon. Between its inception in 1971 and 1985, the basic objectives of the service and its delivery to farmers went unchanged. Thereafter the service went through a constant series of changes, each seemingly at ever-shortening intervals. The words of Caius Petronius (AD 66) appeared on notice boards everywhere: ‘We trained very hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganised. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.’ This quote, I subsequently noted, also featured in Bryan Wheeler's Presidential Address in 1986 (Wheeler, 1987) when speaking of the infrastructure of plant pathology — so little changes. ADAS, as an agent of change, should not balk at changes made to its own organization if it is to deliver services more efficiently and effectively. In 1986 the Agriculture Act allowed for charges to be introduced for advice and in 1987 charges were introduced for all services, apart from advice relating to statutory and environmental issues. Services became available to all who were prepared to pay and not just restricted to farmers and their agents as previously was the case. Fletcher (1989), in his Presidential Address, made some predictions. The introduction of charges for the work of the extension service indicated a principal change in thinking. Fletcher stated that: ‘Whereas until 1986 the emphasis was on providing a benefit to the agricultural industry, it is now on work for those who are prepared to pay. The shift is therefore away from the overall approach to that of the individual…. Can a state-supported plant pathological advisory service survive and remain independent in such a system?…. I believe that advisory plant pathology will not survive unless it has substantial financial input, and without this the service, if it survives, will be greatly reduced…. Without this financial input, advisory plant pathology — and I fear ultimately British agriculture — will suffer.’ What has happened since 1988? The general thrust of Government policy during the 1980s and 1990s was to privatize the public sector. The Government's philosophy was that the private sector was more effective and efficient at delivering services than the public sector. Funding to agricultural science was reduced. The Barnes Review recommended that the customer should pay for near-market R & D from which they would benefit directly and the Government would withdraw funding by 1991. Most of the near market R & D, that is research that was thought to benefit directly the end user, should be paid for by the farmer. As most of the near market work was undertaken in the regions by ADAS in support of advice to the industry, the consequences were that, together with job losses, many ADAS laboratories and centres were closed. To try to make up the shortfall in revenue ADAS then started to compete for grants in areas that were traditionally the province of the research stations and to seek commercial sources of funding. Levies on the agriculture and horticulture industry were increased to provide the funding for R & D that the growers required, for it was soon recognized that individual farmers were not in a position to pay for their own R & D. These cuts naturally led to job losses amongst the specialists. Those who retired were not replaced, and where normal retirements were not sufficient to save costs voluntary and then compulsory redundancies occurred. The intelligence gathering and problem-solving role of a state extension service has disappeared. As Fletcher suggested, this is likely to result in a detrimental effect on agriculture and we are in danger of losing the efficiency gains made over the past decades. In 1992, a Chief Executive was appointed from the private sector to head ADAS, the objective being to prepare ADAS for privatization. The move towards privatization meant a great deal more rationalization to cut costs. As costs mainly resided in rent on buildings and staff, further regional and area offices were closed and advisers moved to home-based working with the regional specialists located on the former Experimental Husbandry Farms, now R & D Centres, with further loss of posts. Regional facilities were closed and national laboratory and library facilities centralized to a single site at Wolverhampton. The activities of ADAS were no longer restricted to England and Wales and much effort was put into overseas consultancy, particularly in the newly emerging nations of eastern Europe. As part of the rationalization process disciplines were amalgamated. As a consequence the discipline structure was lost. Specialists were given the choice of being either in information management, R & D, advice or diagnostics. So the breadth of knowledge vested in one person — the ability to identify problems, do research and provide advice — was lost. Also many specialists found themselves in singleton posts with no day-to-day contact with colleagues of similar background, no immediate access to library facilities and, for example for a pathologist, managed by someone with no understanding of plant pathology. As the funding for R & D from central Government has reduced so the competition for research funds has increased. Scientists are now spending more time on writing research proposals on increasingly complex forms and attending review upon review meeting without actually having the time to deliver adequately the science they are bidding for and effectively communicating the results of their efforts to the industry. The competition for funding is such that individuals are frequently bidding outside their expertise and trying to avoid collaboration as it dilutes revenue to an institute and results in job losses. Scientists are increasingly tied to time specific contracts. Unless further funding is found they are out of a job with the consequent loss of the investment in training and expertise to the economy. Scientists were once paid to be scientists. They are now judged not only on their ability to carry out quality scientific research but also on their ability to bid successfully for funds, with consequently limited time for either. The serendipity has gone out of much of science; we do the research that we think we can get paid for so we drum up an ever-increasing lexicon of ‘buzz’ words and phrases to attract the funding bodies. We are, in effect, playing games. We talk of grantsmanship — which means the ability to write successful proposals. We have milestones to reach with millstones around our necks. Scientists are having to become entrepreneurs as their science is becoming driven by the market. ADAS was eventually privatized in April 1997, thus ending 90 years of a Government owned and funded agricultural advisory service. At its zenith in the mid-1970s, there were about 45 graduate extension pathologists in ADAS (Fletcher, 1989), in 1986 there were 39, today there are 16, and probably only three of these would consider themselves to be actively involved in true extension work; most are now engaged solely in aspects of R & D or diagnosis. ADAS was renowned for its ability to communicate with the agricultural industry. We now have the term ‘technology transfer’, another of the new ‘buzz’ phrases, this time a substitute for the word ‘extension’. It is here worth recalling the comments made by Moore (1942): ‘Perhaps the most urgent need is to remove the serious ‘bottle-neck’ that exists between science and practice. A great volume of knowledge is available, and much of it should long ago have passed into general routine practice. It will never do so, however, until the grower has been convinced by demonstration, and until he appreciates the meaning of what he is expected to do and why it should be done. This involves personal contact, which can be made only to a limited extent by a handful of specialist advisers. Mere numbers, of course, do not provide the answer. Nor do leaflets, bulletins, broadcasts and other forms of publicity. These can and must play their part, but they become really effective only after personal contact has been made and understanding reached. Nor can one look with equanimity on the prospect of advisory work passing largely into the hands of organizations whose interests must necessarily be influenced by the need and desire to sell their own products.’ Moore's words of wisdom became a reality in the formation of NAAS and subsequently ADAS and have again become but a dream. However, we cannot reverse the changes made. The political climate has changed and so we must manage from where we are and not from where we would like to be. Some would argue that scientists have at last been faced with reality, that funding is finite, that we must be competitive and that there is nothing wrong with being driven by the market. If customers are not prepared to pay for a product then it should be removed from the shelf. That assumes, of course, that science can be treated as a product and that there is a direct and identifiable beneficiary. However, those of us who are relatively old have memories of what to us were the ‘good old days’; we must remember that the young are now working through what to them will be their ‘good old days’. I believe the older and experienced generation have the moral duty to lead and inspire the young because that is how we arrived at where were are today. I was told on a recent management course that we should make ‘magic for staff’. I am sure we can still do that, for to me our discipline is ‘magic’. What about where we are going? What is extension plant pathology about? It can be summed up in the ‘purpose of job’ section of my old staff reports, and that is simply to collect, evaluate and disseminate information on plant diseases. In a paper in Plant Pathology, David Yarham (1993) began a section: ‘In 1989, ADAS plant pathologists encountered a number of cases of bunt which caused them to reconsider preconceptions about the disease.’ That to me sums up what extension plant pathologists are about. Bunt, caused by the fungus Tilletia caries, is a rare disease in the UK because it is controlled effectively by seed treatments. Most plant pathologists and nonspecialists alike can recognize the disease at harvest; however, not every one has the perception to realize when something unusual is happening. This comes only through years of observation and experience, literally in the field. The preconception was that bunt is wholly seed-borne, but field observation and intelligent reasoning indicated that the infection must have originated from the soil. New control strategies had therefore to be developed as a matter of urgency. Another case in point is that of barley yellow mosaic virus, confirmed for the first time in the UK in Oxfordshire in 1980 (Hill & Evans, 1980). Symptoms are of a striate chlorotic mottle and at a distance the crop looks as if it is suffering from waterlogging, for symptoms are generally at their most obvious in the late winter and early spring months. It is only when the plants fail to respond to spring nitrogen applications that farmers begin to notice and make enquiries on why the crop is not changing its appearance. The disease was probably around for much longer but it was the careful observation and the persistence of an ADAS plant pathologist, Bill Clark, who noted something unusual and did not give up until a satisfactory diagnosis was obtained. Within two seasons there were 200 records (Gair et al. 1987). This was not surprising, for once identified, people went out to look at every yellow patch reported in winter barley crops with suspicious and enquiring minds. I believe that surveys of crops are fundamental in determining the relative importance of specific diseases and in identifying the weather and husbandry factors that play a key role in their severity and distribution. It is appropriate that I spend some part of my address on this subject for I now have the privilege of occupying the post that E. C. Large was appointed to in 1950. Disease assessment and surveys have been the core activity of the unit since 1950. Large (1955) wrote a summary of methods in plant disease assessment together with a brief history of its development. In his Presidential Address to the British Mycological Society, Large (1961) brought his disease assessment ideas to bear even on fungal forays and suggested that estimates of the numbers of species per acre be obtained so that: ‘Once such assessments of toadstool populations had been made, on a sufficient number of occasions, and in a sufficient number of places, they would provide measures, or parameters, of toadstool production which could be correlated with already available parameters of climate and weather.’ It is this basic collection of data on disease incidence and severity, together with crop husbandry details, that makes such surveys most powerful instruments in understanding reasons for year-to-year variation or in identifying trends. Jenkins (1978) discussed the value of monitoring diseases in crops. He considered it important first to obtain records of disease and subsequently to monitor disease development and spread. How
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