Westwood Organizes World Congress on Parasitic Plants

Jim Westwood is pictured here
in front of the group.

The 9th World Congress on Parasitic Plants was held from June 3-7 in Charlottesville. The congress is the official meeting of the International Parasitic Plant Society (IPPS) and continues a tradition of regularly assembling the world's experts on parasitic plants. PPWS faculty member Jim Westwood, an associate professor, is currently the vice president of IPPS and served as program chair and lead organizer for the congress.

Eighty participants from 25 different countries attended the congress. Although all conduct research focused on parasitic plants, the participants represented a wide spectrum of disciplines, including biochemistry, phylogenetics, molecular biology, ecology, and weed science. Collecting all these people together provided a fertile environment for the exchange of ideas and exploring different aspects of parasitic plants. A new feature for this congress was the inclusion of two guest speakers from outside the typical parasitic plant research community, with Jeff Palmer speaking about horizontal gene transfer among plants and Maria Harrison discussing plant interactions with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Breakthroughs in technology that facilitate the identification of seed germination stimulants have challenged our understanding of the biological role of these compounds while genomics, microarrays, and gene silencing are revolutionizing our ability to dissect host-parasite interactions. Despite this progress, participants were reminded that progress in the control of parasitic weeds has occurred relatively slowly, and that effective and practical solutions are needed more than ever.