When I received an invitation to attend the International Symposium on
Lethal Yellowing being organised by the Centro de Investigacion
Cientifica de Yucatan (CICy), I was excited and a little nostalgic.
During the 1970s, a series of similar symposia had been held under the
auspices of the loosely-constituted "International Council on Lethal
Yellowing" (ICL Y). These were the years when the MLO cause for L Y was
first proposed, a vector was found, the disease was racing across
mainland Florida, USA and it was suspected of having jumped to Cozumel.
Analogous diseases were also reported to be spreading in Africa and
elsewhere. The ICL Y meetings, held approximately every two years,
proved to be an immensely valuable forum for all involved in the
research and control of L Y. They attracted a very wide cross-section of
scientists and practitioners working on L Y, on related diseases, and on
palms in general. Many participants of those ICL Y meetings also
attended this CICY Symposium. Unfortunately, during the 1980s, as
countries learned to live with L Y, most of the national and
international funding for L Y research dried up, and so did ICL Y. The
present symposium is the only international meeting to have been devoted
to L Y since the last meeting of rCLY in 1979. Its convening in Merida
is timely.