Rust Committee Report for WIFDWC – Waikoloa 2000

Rick Hunt chaired the meeting and started off the round table reporting on rusty events. He reported: 1) the Corvallis ribes conference proceedings are now published in HorTechnology 10(3) – 18 papers & 1 abstract. 2) The BC people held a white bark pine meeting at Apex mountain on July 13. 3) He continues to work on and be frustrated by “Spots only” resistance in white pine.  Dave Johnson reported that blister rust is now in northern CO.  Rich Sniezko invited all to attend the IUFRO white pine working group meeting the last week of next July in Grants Pass or Medford.  There is a possibility that the IUFRO rust meeting for 2002 will be in China, failing that it could be in western North America.  Abul Ekramoddoulla summarized his protein work with white pine and Cronartium ribicola, including MGR resistance in Pw & Ps and his plans to use the promoter of the cold gene to trigger antibody defence in Pw.  Boris Tkacz mentioned that there would be a white pine project review in September.  Geral McDonald covered many white pine topics with which he is associated including: 1) A management model. 2) An epidemiology model (for this he is keen to have co-operators gathering environmental data – contact him for details). 3) The concept of “environmental races”. 4) Resistance in Pwb. 5) Cronartium ribicola penetration process of pines. 6) The use pedigreed Pw and others with RFLP markers in order to generate a genetic map of Pw. 7) The ecological effects Pw removal. Eric Smith is modelling growth & yield.  He plans on having a Pf and blister rust meeting in CO in a couple of years.  Ellen Goheen is to co-ordinate a multi-regional proposal (including BC) where different Pw stock types (eg. pre-pruned outplants; browse cylinders, other ideas?) will be planted out to determine if there are differential wpbr effects.  (Contact Ellen if you are interested in participating).  She will be surveying Pwb in Crater Lake shortly. Jim Hoffman reported that most of the trees surveyed in 1996 in the Boise NF are now dead from BB.  John Schwandt reported: 1) He is looking at Pwb stands. 2) That F2 resistant stands may range in rust infection from 10 to 80%  and a student is to attempting correlations to weather parameters. 3) The olde pruning study is still out there and still yielding data that supports that pruning works.  However, spacing opens the stand, perhaps permitting more ribes to grow, thus weakening or nullifying the goodness of pruning. 4) He is stillworking on the wpbr model with Ft. Collins. 5) He would like people to contact him if they can corroborate or deny that many cankers occurred in 1995 or 1996.  Rich Hunt is to receive credit for any inaccurate reporting of the meeting.