Abstract

A Keynote paper presented at the Second Australasian Soilborne Diseases Symposium, Lorne, 5–8 March 2001

Australasia, ‘Australia and surrounding islands’, refers to a vast and diverse geographic region including Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. The geographic diversity, spanning wet tropical to sub-Antarctic biomes and everything in between, means that the problems confronting Australasian plant pathologists are equally diverse. Rapid changes to our physical, economic and geopolitical environment, and the biological irrelevance of national borders, promise interesting times ahead for plant pathologists.

In this paper I want to address the following: Who will the future plant pathologists be? What will they work on? Who will they work for? Will biotechnology ever become useful? An ethical future?