| III. Review Proceedings of the First International Wheat Genetics Symposium A. B. BURDICK Biological Laboratory, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan The proceedings of the First International Wheat Genetics Symposium have been published, distributed to the 147 participants (from 29 different countries), and offered for sale to the rest of us. I bought a copy because it appears to me to be a good buy for five dollars. The symposium was held at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada in August of 1958, just prior to the International Genetics Congress in Montreal. It's organization was brought about by Dr. B. C. Jenkins, who also compiled and edited the symposium volume, under a committee headed by Dr. H. Kihara. The symposium had been contemplated as long ago as Bellagio (1953) and had been finally planned at the Genetics Symposium in Japan in 1956. Now that the first internationale has been accomplished, wheat geneticists can look forward to future meetings as more-or-less permanent adjuncts of international genetics congresses, the next one being planned now in connection with the forthcoming congress in Germany. The 270 page proceedings of the First International Wheat Genetics Symposium contains 20 full-length research papers taken from the four Sessions of the symposium, Genetics and Plant Breeding (7 papers), Mutation (3 papers), Genetic Stocks (3 papers), and Polyploidy and Aneuploidy (7 papers), as well as a special research lecture on the Hindukush Expedition of 1955 by Dr. Kihara. This volume accomplishes an important purpose if it serves to draw attention to the broad scope and sophistication of wheat genetics research, research which, although only 40 years old,can display (as it did at the symposium) 60 artificial species, can take pride in the most advanced work in ploidy, in evolution, and in the application genetics to plant breeding. The informal discussions which followed most of the symposium papers are recorded in verbatim style which makes them particularly valuable and interesting. (Editor's note: A picture and the names of the participants are given on cover pages i and ii.) |