History and Establishment of the IRC
The idea for establishing an International Rhizoctonia Committee (IRC) was the subject of many conversations among Rhizoctonia researchers in the late 1980's. In 1993 at the International Congress of Plant Pathology Meeting in Montreal, Canada, Martin Kulik (United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland) and Baruch Sneh (Tel Aviv University, Israel) organized an evening session where scientists from various countries presented lectures on Rhizoctonia -related research. In another evening session during this meeting, the concept and framework for establishing the IRC was presented and seven members from six different countries were elected to serve on the first International Rhizoctonia Working Group Committee. The elected members were: Baruch Sneh, Chair (Israel); Donald Carling, Vice-Chair (USA); Suha Jabaji-Hare, Secretary, (Canada); Martin Kulik, Newsletter Editor, (USA); Gerda Dijst (The Netherlands); Stephen Neate (Australia); and Mitsuro Hyakumachi (Japan). A few months later, the IRC was officially recognized by the International Society of Plant Pathology (ISPP) .
The first duty of the IRC was to organize an international symposium and publish a comprehensive book summarizing the accumulating information on various aspects of Rhizoctonia -related research. The symposium, sponsored by the ISPP, was organized by Gerda Dijst and held in The Netherlands in June, 1995. A book entitled " Rhizoctonia Species: Taxonomy, Molecular Biology, Ecology, Pathology and Disease Control" (eds. B. Sneh, S. Jabaji-Hare, S. Neate and G. Dijst) was subsequently published in 1996 (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands) .
The primary objectives of the IRC are to promote exchange of new scientific information and foster the development of international collaborations. For a more detailed description of IRC objectives click here; Objectives
Newsletters
Newsletters are no longer produced. Below links are to past issues.
