The incredible pace of change: information technology in support of plant pathology

Whither or wither extension plant pathology?

“…There is obviously a great interest in modern methods of communication, a major theme of last year's BSPP Presidential Conference held in Canterbury (Scott, 1997). The use of the World Wide Web and information packed into CD Roms enables advisers to have a rich store of information at their fingertips.…”

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“…Two major events in the beginning of the 90's served to highlight microbial culture collections as genetic resource centres with relevance to biotechnology, health care, agriculture, industry and other services. The ®rst was the Kra l Symposium in 1990, for the commemoration of 100 years of culture collections, since the establishment of the ®rst culture collection of yeasts and ®lamentous fungi, in Prague, in 1890 by Frantisek KraÁ l, for the preservation and distribution of microorganisms for research, industry, diagnosis and teaching (Sly et al 1990). Two years later at the UN Conference on the Environment and Development (Earth Summit), in Rio de Janeiro, where environment protection and the preservation of the genetic pool inherent to biodiversity was one of the major recommendations, Agenda 21 was subscribed to by all the States present.…”

“…The current boost in information technology and the availability of new tools to assess and transform the bulk of present knowledge, allow for quick and easy access to a wide variety of information in the many areas of pure and applied biology (Scott 1997).…”