I'm at my desk today catching up (slightly) on things that accumulated during the past few months when it seemed like I was in meetings more than I was anywhere else. I thought I'd share a few thoughts on one upcoming meeting to put on your "I should think about attending" radar as well as three recent weed science meetings.
For your radar:
Weed Day 2014 at UC Davis will be held on July 10, 2014. I'm the chairperson for this year's Weed Day, the 58th annual Weed Day by the way. At this point, the program is a work-in-progress, but will have a similar format to previous years. We'll start off with a half-day field tour of research plots and demonstrations on the research farm followed by lunch and an afternoon of presentations about ongoing off-campus weed management research. A partial list of topics to be dicsussed includes: tomato and melon herbicide screening, field bindweed management in summer crops, herbicide carryover symptomology, orchard herbicides, aquatic weeds (and an introduction to a new aquatic weed research scientist), glyphosate-resistant weed management, herbicide-resistant rice weeds, invasive rangeland weeds, grassland restoration, intercropping in young orchards, and more. We maxed out our registration for this event early the past couple years, so please register early to guarantee a spot (Registration Link). Anyone (companies or individuals) interested in sponsoring Weed Day can contact us at the registration page as well. Hope to see you on July 10th for Weed Day!
Recent Weed Science Society meetings:
While I don't always attend all three of these meetings, this year I earned the Weed Science Triple Crown by attending the annual meetings of: the California Weed Science Society (CWSS), the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA), and the Western Society of Weed Science (WSWS) - that's a lot of conference rooms and bad coffee!.
The California Weed Science Society meeting was the week of January 20th in Monterey at the Portola Plaza Resort. That is one of the favorite venues for the meeting and was well-attended as usual - probably around 600 participants. One of the recurring themes of the conference was herbicide-resistant weeds. We focused on that topic for the Weed School Session and quite a number of the individual presentation also related to that important topic. The agenda for the meeting included many UC, CSU, and pest control industry speakers who really could address the local issues and current topics of interest to California weed managers. Additionally, we were fortunate to have a number of high-profile speakers from outside the state including Dr. Stanley Culpepper (Univ. of Georgia), Dr. David Shaw (Univ. of Mississippi), and Dr. Clarence Swanton (Univ. of Guelph). Next year's CWSS meeting will be the week of January 21, 2015 in Santa Barbara - it will be held at the Fess Parker Resort where we were a few years ago and another great venue for the meeting. Registration is not yet open for this, but stay tuned at this link for CWSS 2015
The Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) meeting was held the week of February 3rd in Vancouver, British Columbia. Some alert readers may observe that Canada isn't actually part of the US; however the Canadian Weed Science Society is one of the member societies of the WSSA. Additionally this year's meeting was actually a joint meeting between the WSSA and the Canadian Weed Science Society (or as we in California refer to it - the "other CWSS"!). There were several really interesting symposia on various focused topics as well as nearly 400 research papers or poster presentations. Compared to the state and regional societies, there are a lot more basic science research presentations at the WSSA meeting - some of the ones I found very interesting included herbicide formulation technology, physiology and genetics of resistance, and RNAi technologies for managing resistance. There also were many presentations on the performance and pros and cons of herbicide resistance technology "stacking" in agronomic crops. I am on the Herbicide Handbook Committee for WSSA and I'm excited to report that the 10th edition of this great resource is supposed to go to the printer in April of this year. It's not available yet, but when it is, you can find it at the WSSA bookstore among other places. I was honored by the WSSA this year as outstanding early career weed scientist which was an incredible honor. Next year, the WSSA meeting will be held in Lexington, Kentucky the week of February 9, 2015. This is a great meeting and gives a chance to interact with fellow weed scientists from around the US and the world.
Finally, the Western Society of Weed Science (WSWS) held it's annual meeting last week (March 11-13) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is one of my favorite weed science society meetings, partially because I've worked in weed science at a number of the western universities, but also because it is such a supportive society for students and early career scientists. This meeting had about 260 attendees, including over 40 graduate students, and about 140 research presentations. In the West, weed issues separate a bit into agronomic crops, range and natural areas, and "other". However, us "other" specialty crop weed management researchers were well represented. One of the highlights of this meeting to me was the awards ceremony where UC Davis Emeritus Professor, Robert Norris was named Fellow of the Society in 2014. This is one of the most prestigious awards that a scientific society bestows on it's members and Dr. Norris joins a pretty long list of California weed scientists who've received that award including: WT Lanini (2013), L Anderson (2012), J. Holt (2012), K. Al-Khatib (2009), D. Colbert (1996), HM Kempin (1992), LW Mitich (1991), HS Agamalian (1990), WB McHenry (1989), CL Elmore (1983), DE Bayer (1978), AH Lange (1977), and AS Crafts (1968). [My apologies if I missed any other California weed scientist who received that award - I don't recognize everyone on that list]. Next year's WSWS meeting is in Portland, Oregon the week of March 9, 2015. See you there!