This award supports the participation of ten US scientists in a US-South Africa Workshop on Bacterial Wilt Disease, to be held in White River, South Africa, in February 2002. The co-organizers are Caitilyn Allen, University of Wisconsin, and Jody Terblance and Gerrit Prinsloo, Institute for Industrial Corps, South African Agricultural Research Council. The workshop is being held in conjunction with the Third International Symposium on Bacterial Wilt Disease, which is scheduled for February 4-8, 2002. Three graduate students and one postdoctoral fellow are among the US participants.
Bacterial wilt disease attacks many cash and subsistence crops in the tropics and subtropics, including tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, plantains, peanuts, and tobacco. The pathogen responsible for bacterial wilt is a soilborne bacterium, Ralstonia solanacearum. Because of its geographic distribution, the disease has received relatively little attention from researchers in Europe and North America, even as it causes devastating crop losses each year in the developing world. The goals of the workshop are to establish common areas of interest among US and South African researchers, design collaborative projects, identify and prioritize the most pressing issues currently confronting bacterial wilt researchers in these regions, and develop procedures for exchanging scientific materials necessary for effective bacterial wilt research.
