Haustorium 50 Issue!
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HAUSTORIUM 50 January 2007 1 HAUSTORIUM Parasitic Plants Newsletter Official Organ of the International Parasitic Plant Society 50th ISSUE! January 2007 Number 50 MESSAGE FROM THE IPPS PRESIDENT acquaintances between those interested in parasitic Dear IPPS Members, plants. The IPPS wishes you a happy festive season and a While the main reports during the early years of peaceful and happy 2007. We all wish that the New Haustorium were on taxonomic, anatomical and Year will bring a better understanding of parasitic physiological aspects of parasitic plants, the recent plants, and new breakthroughs in our ability to control issues also report on significant progress in molecular parasitic weeds. research of parasitic plants, with emphasis on three In addition to celebrating the birth of a new year, we main areas: (a) genome studies of parasitic plants, are also happily celebrating the issue of the 50th including evolutionary, genetic and physiological edition of Haustorium, the well established considerations; (b) the development of new resistances Newsletter of the parasitic plant research community. It against parasitic weeds either directly by genetic is my pleasure to send our special thanks and engineering or indirectly by the employment of appreciation to the dedicated founding Editors of herbicide resistance; and (c) the development of Haustorium and honorary members of the IPPS, Chris molecular markers for diagnostic purposes, and for Parker and Lytton Musselman, for their immense marker-assisted selection, serving more efficient long lasting contribution in distributing updated breeding of various crops for resistance against knowledge on parasitic plants to all parts of the world, parasitic weeds. gathering pieces of information on a variety of aspects Another encouraging development of the last decade is of parasitic plant biology and on the management of the availability of a number of effective means for the parasitic weeds, for the benefit of us all. control of Orobanche and Striga in some important The first issue of Haustorium was published in crops like maize and tomato. While almost no means December 1978, aiming to present a form of for the control of parasitic weeds were available in the communication that 'would meanwhile serve a useful seventies and eighties, we now have at least two groups purpose in keeping workers in contact with each other of herbicides (sulfonylureas and imidazolinones) that and with research results which are not always readily can effectively control parasitic weeds in low doses. accessible to all concerned', with main emphasis on These aspects and many others will be presented and Orobanche and Striga. discussed in the coming Parasitic Plants Congress in And indeed, during almost thirty years since it was first Charlottesville (USA) next June. We are looking published, Haustorium reflected the important progress forward to your registration and scientific contribution in the knowledge and understanding of parasitic plants, to the success of the Congress (for more information and even more so, in our ability to control Orobanche see: http://www.cpe.vt.edu/wcopp/index.html). and Striga. Haustorium is and has been an important source of information, and a valuable link for new Daniel M. Joel IPPS President HAUSTORIUM 50 January 2007 2 information is still feeble in places. As Soltis and Soltis GUEST EDITORIAL wrote a few years ago, future work ‘will require new morphological and molecular data for many groups, I am very appreciative of having been asked to set down including both a search for new characters and filling in some thoughts at the 50th issue of ‘Haustorium’. data’ for many groups. In what used to be called Needless to say, the first item on the agenda is to thank Scrophulariaceae, molecular data have produced great the members of the Editorial Team for their splendid upheavals. All parasites of this alliance are now united work in keeping ‘Haustorium’ going. It is quite with Orobanchaceae, the older family name. In impossible to keep abreast of all publications in this Santalales, Dan Nickrent and coworkers are looking diverse field, and the network that radiates out from the forward to a resolution of phylogenetic affinities which, Editorial Team has been invaluable to many of us. May no doubt, will have some surprising results. ‘Haustorium’ long continue! I cannot avoid a feeling of sadness that some aspects of When I look back over the decades since my 1969 book the study of parasitic plants have very nearly been I am both astonished at the accomplishments and sidelined. Although some individual physiological worried about some trends which we see around us. In contributions have been made, what do we really know some areas, progress has been uneven. I do not pretend about the physiology of mistletoes or Orobanchaceae to be "on top of" the agricultural aspects of parasitic that we didn't know 40 years ago? The crucial plants, but it seems to me that the early promise of penetration into host tissues is no better understood than control of the terrible Striga problems in Africa seems it was a century ago: the statement that it probably to be fading, and the same might be said in the requires a combination of physical and enzymatic Orobanche area. Innumerable field trials have been processes almost reads like a tired mantra. With a done on a local basis - but the face of starvation couple of bright exceptions (I am thinking of Brian continues to stare at us in many places where Striga is Fineran's remarkable study of Nuytsia floribunda, for rampant. Effective control seems to be beyond our example, but also the recent Arceuthobium publication grasp. Many of us know that there are significant by David Lye), the same can be said for haustorial sociological and political dimensions here which structure. There are still several families in which the complicate things even further. Looking at the positive structure of the haustorial interface is practically side, it is rather remarkable that no economically unknown (Lennoaceae, Balanophoraceae, important parasites have followed our footsteps to lands Hydnoraceae). With the exception of a superficial study where they could do serious damage. For years I have on Psittacanthus, and Jim Mauseth's work on Tristerix sensed the danger, for example, of Aeginetia making its aphyllus, no anatomical information is available in this way to the sugarcane fields of Hawaii and tropical area for any tropical Loranthaceae, whether in the Old America. Considering the amount of present or in the New World. We can never understand international travel, it is a miracle that it has not parasitism until we have an adequate grasp of haustorial happened yet. structure. It is my hope that the next generation may fill many of these serious gaps. The continuance of My own interests, from the beginning, have been of a ‘Haustorium’ will be a significant help in the future. structural and systematic sort and that bias, naturally, colors my view of what has been accomplished. I feel Job Kuijt that the systematics of mistletoes has progressed Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Victoria, strikingly in the most recent decades. Brian Barlow has BC, Canada. done a splendid job in updating the mistletoes of Australasia, and the magnificent monograph of African mistletoes by Roger Polhill and Del Wiens has set a HOW HAUSTORIUM HAPPENS standard not likely to be reached by anyone else. Africa is a "dark continent" no longer in the mistletoe world. In Publication of the 50th issue of this newsletter and its the neo-tropics, I am struggling to make at least the success as an organ of information on parasitic plants is larger genera a bit more transparent, but have a long something that the two of us could not have imagined. ways to go. In the (new) Orobanchaceae, a thorough Therefore, we thought it would be appropriate if we monograph of Harveya has just appeared, and I am told were to give some history on the newsletter which we a monograph of the Santalaceous Thesium is on the have jointly edited since its inception. way. It is essential that such monographic studies continue. More and more, they will incorporate vital The primordium of Haustorium goes back to Chris’ molecular information. But the backbone of structural involvement with the EWRC (European Weed Research HAUSTORIUM 50 January 2007 3 Council) Working Group on Parasitic Weeds. It had years now the aim has been to include ALL items of circulated a few newsletters of a sort (sadly none of relevance that we encounter. Since closure of the Long those newsletters survives; if anyone else has any we Ashton Research Station, Bristol, and removal of its would love know) but the main achievement of that library, this has depended increasingly on CAB group was to arrange the first Parasitic Weed International’s Weed Abstracts but this does not cover Symposium in Malta in 1973, attended by about 35 all items of interest and we are glad to have attention enthusiasts including Job Kuijt, Siny ter Borg, Piet drawn to those that might otherwise be missed. While Wolswinkel and Jose Cubero in addition to ourselves. Chris is mainly responsible for the summaries, we are Subsequently, it was felt that, because of the increasing grateful to Jim Westwood for help with those that are emphasis on non-European problems, especially Striga, beyond our competence. While we have no wish to it was no longer justified to use EWRC funds for this become a fully-fledged journal we have included brief activity. Thanks to the initiative of the Canadian research notes and would welcome more, in addition to International Development Research Centre (IDRC) a relevant news items.. Striga Workshop was organised in Sudan in November 1978 at which time we discussed the possibility of a Composition and formatting of each issue happens on newsletter.