PLANT PATHOLOGY: a discipline at a crossroads

The Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California at Berkeley was destroyed as a consequence of a contentious reorganization. The circumstances that led to the reorganization provide some insight into the challenges facing the discipline of plant pathology. The underlying basis for plant pathology as a science is to address problems of plant disease. This requires a balance between disciplinary and problem-solving research and a continuum from achieving fundamental advances in knowledge to the development and implementation of problem-solving approaches. Changes in colleges and universities have placed extreme stress on this essential structure. The dilemma that must be addressed is how to reestablish the problem-solving continuum where it has been broken and strengthen it where it has been weakened. Plants are essential for life, and they will always be affected by disease. The understanding and management of these diseases is the responsibility and the challenge of plant pathology today and in the future.