About the foundation
By Dr. Roy Johnson, July 2000
The purposes of the European and Mediterranean Cereal Rusts Foundation (EMCRF), given in the legal document by which it is registered in the Netherlands were as follows:
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to organize international conferences on problems related to the rust diseases of cereals, with special reference to Europe and the Mediterranean area;
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to promote international co-operation on the study of cereal rusts in particular, and where necessary of cereal diseases and pests in general;
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to promote scientific research on cereal rusts in particular, and where necessary, of cereal diseases and pests in general, and further the practical application the scientific results;
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to edit or to promote the editing of an information bulletin on pests and diseases of cereals, with special reference to cereal rusts.
After 1945, as Europe recovered from the devastation of war, plant pathologists with interests in the cereal rusts were keen to re-establish contacts with each other across Europe. At that time there was concern about the possible spread of stem rust, on a pathway from the Mediterranean area northwards in Europe. There was also concern about the spread of yellow (stripe) rust. There were several informal meetings between European workers concerned with these diseases. There was agreement among them that a more comprehensive system for exchange of information was desirable.
In 1964 the first combined cereal rusts conference was held in Cambridge at the Plant Breeding Institute. Some famous names attended, including E. C. Stakman, and these are listed under a photograph of the participants in the Proceedings. The front page of the Proceedings records the meeting as comprising the Third European Yellow Rust Conference, First European Brown Rust Conference and Third European Colloquium on Black Rust of Cereals.
During this meeting, a standing committee was created for organising the next meeting in Portugal. It included R. C. F Macer, (Chairman), J. C. Santiago (Secretary to the next Cereal Rusts Conference), M. Boskovic (Brown rust), I, Wahl (Black rust) and J. C. Zadoks (Yellow rust).
The conference was duly organised and held at Oeiras, Portugal in 1968. At this meeting, it was agreed to provide the organisation with a legal status, by registering it as a Foundation under Dutch Law, and seated in the Netherlands. The European and Mediterranean Cereals Rusts Conference was given legal status as a non-profit organisation on 18th April 1969. The members of the Board were Chairman: R. C. F. Macer, Secretary: J. C. Zadoks, Treasurer: S. Broekhuizen, Member: M. Boskovic, Member: J. C. Santiago. The logo for the Foundation was selected as the symbol used on the front of the proceedings of the conference in Portugal, and consists of a circle with the words C.R.C and PANIS AB UREDINE LIBER, within which are wheat ears and both urediospores and a teleutospore of a cereal rust on their stalks.
It was agreed to publish a Cereal Rusts News when an editor could be found. J. G. Manners was the first editor and continued from inception of the publication in 1973 until 1977, under the title of Cereal Rusts Bulletin.
There were offers from Czechoslovakia and from Switzerland for holding further conferences, and these were held in Prague in 1972 and in Interlaken in 1976. Subsequent meetings were in Italy 1980, France 1984, Austria 1988, Germany 1992 and the Netherlands 1996. The conference for 2000 will be held in Hungary. Thus the Foundation continued its function of organising meetings at four-yearly intervals and proceedings of each of the conferences were published. The publication of the Bulletin also continued under several different editors. During this time, it can reasonably be considered that these conferences became the main world meetings for the Cereal Rusts and participants came from all over the world. In 1988 the decision was taken to include the powdery mildews of cereals in the conferences, because their similarities to the rusts as parasites of the cereals. This was within the scope of the Foundation as envisaged in the original constitutional document.
A debt is owed by the rust workers of today to the foresight of those early post-war workers who recognised the need for an organisation for exchange of information about cereal rusts.
Roy Johnson
