Abstract
A comprehensive review of past lethal yellowing research would be largely irrelevant; there are many earlier theories, hypotheses and blind alleys that are not of concern. Several comprehensive reviews have appeared over the past 20 years [31, 34, 56, 64, 70, 71] and this paper presents a personal view of some of the landmarks in the history of lethal yellowing and related disease research, and their attempted control. This paper focuses on events prior to investigations under a European Community (EC)-funded project on the aetiology and control of lethal yellowing-type diseases (LYD) of coconut palms in Africa, in which there are six project partners. Funding for this project was formally agreed in September 1992 under the EC Science and Technology for Development Program (STD). However, some of the work started earlier with assistance from other funding agencies. The STD project was approved after proposals for research on LYD were given high priority by participants at the First International Workshop on Coconut in Africa, sponsored by BuroTrop and held in Arusha, Tanzania, in February 1991. A workshop held in Jamaica during 1992 endorsed proposals for similar activities in the Central America/Caribbean region but have yet to be translated into collaborative international projects. It is hoped that this symposium will maintain the momentum of research.
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Eden-Green, S.J. (1995). A brief history of lethal yellowing research. In: Oropeza, C., Howard, F.W., Ashburner, G.R. (eds) Lethal Yellowing: Research and Practical Aspects. Developments in Plant Pathology, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0433-3_2
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