Table of Contents Pineapple Working Group News
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Newsletter of the Pineapple Working Group, International Society for Horticultural Science Issue No. 22, June, 2015 Table of Contents Pineapple Working Group News ................................................................................................................................... 2 From the Editor ....................................................................................................................................................... 2 9th International Pineapple Symposium .................................................................................................................. 2 Silicon in Pineapple ................................................................................................................................................ 2 New Patented Pineapple Cultivars .......................................................................................................................... 7 News from Australia ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 Report of the 8th International Pineapple Symposium ........................................................................................... 8 Abstracts of Papers Presented at the 8th International Pineapple Symposium ....................................................... 9 News from Benin ......................................................................................................................................................... 17 Effect of Physical Damage and Storage of Pineapple Fruits on their Suitability for Juice Production ................ 17 Using Agronomic Tools to Improve Pineapple Quality and its Uniformity in Benin .......................................... 18 News from Costa Rica ................................................................................................................................................. 23 Phytotoxicity Resulting from Spraying Different Salt Concentrations on ‘MD-2’ Pineapple .......................... 23 Pineapple Culture in Colombia: Opportunity for Agrochemical Companies, a Need for Producers ................ 26 Primer Simposio Internacional sobre Cambio Climático y sus efectos sobre el Cultivo de Piña .................... 26 News from France ........................................................................................................................................................ 28 A short update on the pineapple taxonomy debate ............................................................................................ 28 News from India .......................................................................................................................................................... 29 History of Introduction and Development of Pineapples in North Bengal: as Viewed by a Grower ............... 29 News from Taiwan ...................................................................................................................................................... 43 2015 International Symposium on GA3 Tropical Fruit .................................................................................... 43 GA3 Tropical Fruit Abstracts of Presentations on Pineapple ........................................................................... 45 News from the USA (Hawaii) ..................................................................................................................................... 51 Pineapple Mealybug Wilt Associated Viruses Encoded RNA Silencing Suppressors in the Etiology of Mealybug Wilt of pineapple....................................................................................................................................................... 51 Commercial and Professional Services ........................................................................................................................ 56 Book Reviews and Web Sites of Possible Interest ...................................................................................................... 56 New References on Pineapple ..................................................................................................................................... 56 Contributions to Pineapple News ................................................................................................................................ 67 Newsletter, Pineapple Working Group, International Society for Horticultural Science Pineapple Working Group News From the Editor Dear Colleagues: Welcome to new and old readers to issue number 22 of Pineapple News. There have been three scientific meetings in the recent past that have explored various aspects of pineapple science, a rather surprising number. You all will know that the 8th International Pineapple Symposium was held in Brisbane, Australia last August in conjunction with the International Horticulture Congress. A report of that meeting and the abstracts the papers presented at the meeting were provided by Garth Sanewski and can be found under the heading News from Australia. Surprisingly, two other international meetings that included pineapple were also held recently. I learned from Jhonny Vásquez Jiménez, regular contributor to Pineapple News, that the Primer Simposio Internacional sobre Cambio Climático y sus efectos sobre el Cultivo de Piña (First International Symposium on Climate Change and its Effects on Cultivation of Pineapple) was held November 24 to 26, 2014 at EARTH University, Guanacaste, Costa Rica. No web site or other announcements of the meeting were found. Several of the speakers were from Costa Rica, but Daniel Uriza, an old friend of the Pineapple Working Group and one of the organizers of the 4th International Pineapple Symposium in Veracruz, Mexico, was among the presenters. See the paper titles and names of the presenters in the section News from Costa Rica. The third meeting, with the clever title 2015 International Symposium on GA3 Tropical Fruit (GA3 representing the four main fruit crops, guava, sugar apple, pine apple and wax apple grown in Taiwan) was held in Kaohsiung County, Taiwan from April 8 – 11, 2015. See details of the meeting and abstracts of the papers on pineapple presented there under the heading News from Taiwan. Arun Mandel provides a long but colorful and very personal history of pineapple production in North Bengal, India (News from India). I deleted several of the photos because of poor quality and to keep the file to a manageable size. 9th International Pineapple Symposium The 9th International Pineapple Symposium will be held at EARTH University (http://www.earth.ac.cr/), Guácimo, Limón, Costa Rica, from 2 – 8 October, 2017. Prof. Luis Ernesto Pocasangre Enamorado is leading the organizing effort for this next Symposium in beautiful Costa Rica. Silicon in Pineapple D.P. Bartholomew, Dept. Tropical Plant &Soil Science, Univ. of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96825, U.S.A. This note was prompted by an inquiry from a reader of Pineapple News about information on silica (Si) in pineapple. Since that inquiry, I received information that some pineapple growers in Mexico and Central America were applying a material that contained silica as well as other macro and micro nutrients to their pineapples with no data on yields but with reports of visible responses. The main purpose of this note is to highlight the near complete lack of actual data on the benefits, if any, of Si for pineapple. Summary 1. Fewer than ten papers published between 1896 and 1949 contained information about Si in pineapple. No studies of the effects of Si on pineapple growth were found in that time period. 2. Data from an experiment on the effects of Si on the growth of ‘Smooth Cayenne’ pineapple in pots (Thiagalingam, 1971; Thiagalingam et al., 1977) showed a significant increase in growth in Kapaa soil, but not in Paaloa soil. Si in D leaf basal white tissue ranging from 0.10 to 0.16% was designated as low while levels between 0.30 and 0.60% were designated as adequate. Detailed data as well as some limitations of the experiment design and other possible problems with the study are discussed below. 3. Silica is reported to be mainly a defense element (Epstein, 2009) that is reported to protect plants from diseases, predators and stresses. Since pineapple is very tolerant of high levels of soluble aluminum (Al) 2 Newsletter, Pineapple Working Group, International Society for Horticultural Science and manganese (Mn) and is very drought tolerant, detecting specific benefits of Si in pineapple likely would be difficult. Among the major problems that might be influenced by adequate levels of plant Si are increased resistance to Phytophthora spp., bacterial rots and feeding by insects, e.g. Thecla, nematodes, symphylids and grubs that feed on roots. Such benefits were not tested for and likely would not have been observed in the research of Thiagalingam (1971) because oven-dried soil was used. 4. It is not likely that pineapple would benefit from applications of Si when grown on soils with adequate amounts of soluble Si. Unfortunately few data on Si in soils in which pineapples are grown were found. 5. To help growers determine the value, if any, of Si application, data on the plant available Si in soils in which pineapple is grown are needed. Also, the critical tissue levels of Si in pineapple reported by Thiagalingam (1971) must confirmed. Data must be generated that show that adequate levels of Si in pineapple tissues