Advances in Rice Blast Research. Edited by D. Tharreau, M. H. Lebrun, N. J. Talbot & J. L. Notteghem. 16 × 24 cm, 376 pp. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers (http://www.kap.nl), 2000. £112. ISBN 07923 6257 8 (hardback).

Abstract

Rice blast disease is a special plant/pathogen combination from a research point of view. Magnaporthe grisea is a devastating pathogen of a globally major crop (Oryza sativa). Both organisms reside in important taxonomic groups and both offer tractable classical and molecular genetic systems. Not surprisingly, researchers gather periodically in meetings focused just on rice blast disease. This publication provides the proceedings of the 2nd International Rice Blast Conference held in Montpellier, France in August 1998. The book contains 40 chapters (papers) organized into six major sections covering, on the plant side: resistance genes, defence reactions and breeding strategies; and, on the fungal side: population studies and molecular genetics. The material is equally divided between rice and the blast fungus. A small section on disease management and epidemiology is also included. Abstracts from the meeting (presumably from poster sessions) are included as well as a useful keyword index (but not an author index). The nature and quality of the chapters is quite uneven. Some chapters are thoughtful reviews of a specific subject area although most chapters are short reports of independent research projects. For example, Manandhar and collaborators provide a detailed review titled ‘Induced resistance against rice blast’ with more than 80 references and Nick Money and collaborators contribute a detailed analysis on turgor of appressoria, whereas some research reports are 5 pages with less than 10 references. Indeed, most chapters have a ‘minipaper’ flavour, including a Materials and Methods section. Thus the book is a meeting summary rather than an all-encompassing review of rice blast research. The unevenness in chapter style extends to the appearance of the text which contains a range of font sizes and figure quality (all black and white). These shortcomings make the price tag (US$180) seem expensive. The meeting was held in August 1998 but the book was not published until August 2000. In the interim major advances have occurred, particularly in the genomics of both rice and the rice blast fungus and these subjects are notably absent from the book. The book can serve as a nice compilation of papers on blast, but a researcher looking for detailed information on one particular topic will soon be scurrying to the primary literature.