12 / SEEDWORLD.COM FEBRUARY 2018 CPPSI members are also participating in the ISF Disease Resistance Terminology working group. Members of this group represent the global seed industry and the working group meets regularly to address questions around disease resistance and strain naming. A white paper of guidelines for the naming of new plant pathogen strains is in development. It is based on the crite- ria for new strain naming developed by the International Bremia Evaluation Board. CPPSI Membership Focus The CPPSI initiative depends on membership subscriptions and seed industry support to continue the development and distri- bution of Reference Materials for use by all members of the seed industry. Representatives from member companies make up the CPPSI working group. The working group meets monthly by webinar to plan and initiate the seed increases, organize and culture associated reference plant pathogen strains and write up instructional white papers for targeted disease systems. Each white paper is reviewed by CPPSI working group members and at least one collaborating topical expert. Located at the University of California at Davis provides CPPSI a neutral base from which to collaborate with all members of the seed industry equally without any perception of preference of one company over another. “That neutrality is important to our credibility,” says Himmel. “We recently changed our membership approach from a set fee to an adjustable fee linked to a company’s annual sales revenue to make CPPSI membership more attractive to smaller companies.” In response to smaller companies that may question the value of CPPSI’s activities for them, Himmel replies: “Access to CPPSI information on disease systems reduces the effort needed to accumulate cultures of verified plant pathogen strains and sources of resistance. Providing these tools for plant pathogen strain evaluation saves time and redundant effort for smaller companies when developing new disease resistance programs and calibrating ongoing programs – why reinvent the wheel?” “We have the knowledge and information to help companies start up and/or calibrate the virulence in their disease resistance programs,” she says CPPSI is in the process of developing an emerging diseases website that pools information about new pathogen strains and plant diseases into one location. The database will contain a searchable collection of information by crop and by pathogen. The site will be available to CPPSI members only and will also feature a forum for interaction and the exchange of information. CPPSI is beginning to gather pathogen resistance information for row crops where diseases take a smaller bite out of yield than in vegetable crops. Generally, a great yield is not dependent on the appearance of the crop, but a few exceptions exist for some diseases in cotton and soy. In contrast, appearance is everything in vegetables because misshapen fruits, leaves, stalks and tubers are not marketable. SW