Articles
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT FIRE BLIGHT
In that time we’ve learned much about this destructive malady through documented research and practical experience.
As part of that evolution of knowledge, a variety of speculations about the etiology and epidemiology of Erwinia amylovora have been made.
Good research has confirmed some of these speculations as fact and discarded others.
In the absence of research data to the contrary, however, some of these speculations have become part of the "legend" of fire blight.
The late J.G. Horsfall and E.B. Cowling in their classic treatise on plant disease noted that Truth is a perception of reality that is consistent with all relevant facts and refuted by none. This is a marvellous characterization of the scientific method that in many ways describes our progress in understanding fire blight.
From my own involvement in the development of the MARYBLYTTM forecasting model for fire blight, I’ve been the author of both fact and speculation, the latter often justified as "heuristic truths" which may accurately describe or illustrate an event but may not, in fact, be causally related.
Model building requires a certain amount of such heuristics to bridge those gaps in our factual knowledge.
The problem that surfaces here is that, sometimes, these speculations, because they seem to explain what we observe, find their way into the "proof" we accept in designing other research and strategies for the management of fire blight.
How fitting it is, therefore, that I am now faced with the unique opportunity to address personally or via reprint just about everyone involved in fire blight research in these opening remarks for the VIIth International Fire Blight Workshop.
During the course of these proceedings we will endure four days of presentations of new relevant facts and, no doubt, many speculations that will change our individual collective perceptions of the truth about fire blight.
My purpose in offering these opening remarks for the 1995 Workshop is to deliberately focus on aspects of fire blight where real truth has yet to be confirmed or where there are major gaps in our knowledge.