DANIEL McALPINE MEMORIAL LECTURE 1978.

 Professor D M Griffin,  Head of the Department of Forestry, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.

Looking Ahead

Mr. President, fellow members of the Australian Plant Pathology Society, ladies and gentlemen, may I first thank you for the honour of inviting me to deliver the second Daniel McAlpine Memorial Lecture. In accepting your invitation, I did not at first realize the problem I had set myself in selecting a topic on which to speak to you. As time went by, and I had still made no decision, there came to my mind in desperation the advice sometimes given to novice speakers that all you need for a speech is a beginning and ending - few listen to the middle and with luck some might even drop off to sleep. My wife is of the opinion that this advice is firmly based after observing me in church Sunday by Sunday. After a rousing hymn from the new Australian Hymn Book, I sit down straight-backed and alert to listen to the sermon. Now it so happens that my church is blessed with a, very good minister and his sermons demand real concentration. I find it easier to give this with my eyes closed. I may even nod my head in agreement with some subtle theological point well made. It is, Mr. President, on the basis of the false interpretation of such observations that the belief has arisen that the middle of lectures are of no account.
Where was 1? - Ah, yes, searching for a topic. I turned to the letter of invitation for guidance. It read, "There are no guidelines for the address. It does not have to be an historical appraisal." Not much help there, except that it was not necessary to try and emulate the masterly summary of the development of knowledge of the diseases linked with the name of Daniel McAlpine, as given by the first Memorial Lecturer.
Eventually, two options remained. The first was to speak on my own research field, the role of physical factors in the ecology of soil micro-organisms and in soil-borne diseases. This I rejected because I have reviewed the topic at fairly frequent intervals and there seemed no justification to do so again to this audience, most members of which are already amongst the converted, so to speak.
The second option was to base my remarks on some thoughts that have come to me with increasing emphasis over the last few years and this I have decided to do. My aim is not to make an authoritative statement but to share with you an area of concern.
My remarks relate to science, rather than to t e particular issue of plant pathology, and especially to the interaction of science with the world of people. Let me lead into this through our own discipline.
My knowledge of Australian plant pathology dates back only to 1955, when I arrived in this country but the change in less than twenty-five years has been extraordinary. I shall note only a few widely differing instances. New institutions have been created or old ones reformed and reinvigorated. In this latter class, the Biological and Chemical Research Institute of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture provides a good example, now drawing visiting research workers of distinction from Britain and America.
Phytoalexins are no longer the off-beat idea of Muller but are firmly established in the plant pathological vocabulary, largely by the early work of Cruickshank and his associates.
Although the terms (thankfully) originated elsewhere, Australian plant pathologists have not been lacking in the investigation of the concepts of vertical and horizontal resistance, as is demonstrated in some of the poster exhibits for this conference.
In my own research area, the barrier between soil microbiology and plant pathology has been breached, to the mutual benefit of both. Our appreciation of the interweaving of the biological, chemical and physical within the soil system is far richer and more accurate than even fifteen years ago.
Our discipline, like the rest of science, would therefore seem to be flourishing. Yet the media frequently suggest that something is amiss. To give but one example, the ABC program "Four Corners" last week showed a film concerning the possible deleterious effects flowing from the use of DDT by the Namoi cotton growers and from the use of 2,4,5-T by forest services. So far we plant pathologists have been relatively fortunate in that the use of fungicides has given rise to fewer environmental problems. Controversies involving aspects of science are not, however, always associated with new chemicals, or even new techniques. Here, Phytophthora cinnamomi provides a good example.
Within Australia at least, the disease of forest trees caused by Phytophthora poses quite exceptional problems. In so saying, I refer mainly neither to the etiology of the disease nor to the ecology of the fungus. Recent work here and overseas provides very strong pointers to clarifying these phytopathological issues. These and related matters will no doubt be reviewed at the Phytophthora workshop to be held following this Conference.
Immediately before such a review by those most directly involved, it is perhaps unwise of me to comment, yet I believe that high risk sites for disease occurrence may soon be identified with more confidence. I say this because of the demonstration by various workers of the likely influence on disease of temperature and of decreased microbial competition in impoverished soils. The vital significance of soil water in regard to both zoospore movement and stimulatory solute diffusion has also been shown in very recent publications.
To me the peculiar problems of this disease lie elsewhere; in its visibility, wide distribution, and the fact that the hosts grow mainly on land in some form of public ownership. When large areas of trees, along with their understories, die and so markedly change the visual impact of public lands, quite new dimensions are introduced into the consideration of a disease. Diseases of annual crops on private land, no matter how disastrous, do not have the same general emotive impact. It is in the interface between plant pathology and land management that this disease has revealed that all is not well. Too few managers have any thorough appreciation of disease, too few pathologists have any understanding of the complex of political, economic, social and historical constraints faced by the managers of public land, especially forested land. The situation is further exacerbated by the existence of third parties, with a proper legitimate interest but generally with little appreciation of the real pathological or managerial issues and constraints.
Changed land use patterns, whether for example it be withdrawal of logging from rain forest or from forests infested with Phytophthora cinnamomi often involve the re-allocation of more general resources. Long-term contracts, entered into by both sides in good faith decades ago, cannot be broken over night nor can the employment of whole communities be so changed without great cost in financial and social terms.
What is really involved in most of these controversial situations is a peculiar form of cost-benefit analysis. What benefit do we, or some group or our contemporaries, derive at what cost to our neighbours of children? Alternatively, what benefit will the next generation receive from a cost incurred by this generation. The situation is particularly confused in a moral sense when I advocate restraint so that future generations may benefit, whilst knowing that this restraint will hurt some of my contemporaries but not me.
Few are skilled in this type of cost-benefit analysis. This is not surprising for ours is the first generation to be able to abuse the world so seriously that untold disasters can flow from our actions. Even when a specialist review indicates that a cost should be paid now in the long-term national interest, no government can be too far ahead of public opinion in its allocation of current resources if it is to survive at the polls.
In what I have just said I am, I suppose, doing nb more than reminding you of the social setting of science. I am not the first to do that, nor the hundredth. Yet how does a scientist enter the areas where scientific issues overlap with, and interpenetrate, management and policy? One way is to adopt the role of an advocate; put more bluntly, to form or join a pressure group. That such an approach has appeal is shown almost daily by reports in the media. A pressure group, however, is by its very nature committed to a certain line, in opposition to another. Its task is to promote one view and so to influence decisions. It in no way takes responsibility for the decision.
Such advocacy is relatively simple and in most cases relatively painless, Not so the role of the responsible decision maker who must attempt to balance the whole complex of inputs and then chart the best course. Only on rare occasions will a scientist be the ultimate decision-maker on major issues but there is a great need for those who are scientifically literate to be heavily involved in the decision making process. Here I certainly envisage a more balanced role than that of advocate. I realise of course that no assessment of a complex issue is truly impartial. We all have our prejudices. Yet the attempt has to be made to resolve the scientific issues and then to consider them in the framework of the total existing constraints. In other words, some at least of us should have two roles. One is strictly biological, and traditional: the other is to help amalgamate the scientific options with "the art of the possible", to help produce the practicable strategy for 1978. It should come as no surprise if what is judged practicable satisfies no one. Such is life.
I should now like to turn to what may at first seem to be quite an unrelated topic. In doing so, let me admit that I shall be wearing, at least over one shoulder, the cloak of the advocate. I refer to tertiary education.
It is significant that Dr. Parbery has seen fit to organize for this conference a session on "Teaching Plant Pathology". I am gratified to know from the way that he has organized that session that he conceives of the word "Teaching" in a very wide sense. Not all seem to do so. At least part of the basis for the unprecedented recent attacks on university autonomy in legislation proposed by both federal and state governments appears to be the concept that university education is amenable to the same types of direction and administrative and budgetary controls as a public trading enterprise. Of course, universities are large enterprises, both in terms of finance and number of personnel, and they should be efficiently run. Their raison d'etre lies quite elsewhere, however.
In this regard, it is regrettable that the Tertiary Education Commission in its first Report should appear to speak almost with one voice concerning the whole spectrum of tertiary education. There is little concerning the fostering of excellence but much on the production of qualified manpower. The trouble with "qualified manpower" is that it usually refers to manpower qualified to perform the tasks or tackle the problems of this and the immediately following years. Such goals are relatively easily formulated and their attainment can be programmed and "targeted" in ways beloved of the bureaucrat.
Our world, however, is changing so rapidly that courses training "qualified manpower" are not the appropriate prerequisite for entry into professional life, whether as a plant pathologist or as anything else. The need here is to broaden horizons, sharpen intellect, encourage precision of observation, thought and analysis. The appropriate subject matter of courses is then the fundamentals of the discipline, on which all else is built. A person so educated will have the ability to demolish outworn superstructures and build new ones in accord with the changing times. To ne, fundamentally, such education is the proper task, or rather part of the proper task, of universities. It fits uneasily into schemes for the production of qualified manpower.
In a recent survey on undergraduate education in the biological sciences carried out under the auspices of the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee (although it may well not reflect that Committee's views), it is concluded that Australian universities are set on the same path as those in the United States. As such they would provide education, or let us hope it would be education, for almost all who desire to enter them. The concept of a centre of excellence would be greatly diminished, at least at the undergraduate level. Now, I accept that Australian universities have already moved some way along this path but I hope that further progression in this direction will not be take;n as inevitable. What then would be the roles of Colleges of Advanced Education and Colleges of Technical and Further Education? Surely they have valid and worthy roles distinct from those of universities?
If, as I personally hope, the idea of excellence is not to be lost from undergraduate education in our universities, what is the nature and intent of Honours degrees? These degrees are traditional in British universities, and we have inherited the tradition, but what do they mean to us? Do they certify to general excellence throughout a course or to excellence in a final year of research? There is little agreement, yet the implications of the two concepts, not least for student and employer, are possibly quite different. For the pass degree, as scientific knowledge increases, should depth in plant pathology be sacrificed for a broad background knowledge of agriculture or biology? If depth is lost at this level, what are the implications for postgraduate degrees? It will be interesting to hear the comments of members of this Society at the session on Wednesday, for such issues affect far more than the universities. They involve our vision of the Australia of the future.
My vision of that future certainly includes our Pacific and Asian neighbours. We have much to offer each other but I should like to single out one facet. I refer again to education, yes, and training, at the highest levels, that is after obtaining the first degree. Such education is notoriously expensive if it is to be worthwhile. Here I believe Australia has a special opportunity and responsibility. This responsibility is mainly that of the universities but is shared with other bodies. For instance, it is pleasing to note the involvement of the plant quarantine section of the Commonwealth Department of Health in organizing and running courses on quarantine. I doubt, however, whether most of our efforts in this general connection are as well-conceived or as effective as they should be, largely because of the failure to relate the program adequately to the social and economic frameworks of lesser developed countries. The usual Australian postgraduate degree by research is little-suited to those coming to us from our neighbours to the north. The greatest need there is not to advance the frontiers of research but for agriculturalists and other scientists to perceive what can be done with present knowledge. If we Australians are to assist in this transfer of existing scientific and technological knowledge through postgraduate courses it is important that we should be aware at firsthand of the problems in developing countries. Here, the Australian Asian Universities Cooperation Scheme has been of considerable benefit in affording opportunities for us to work overseas, albeit for usually short periods. This background knowledge of the countries from which some of our postgraduates come is, vital in devising courses to widen experience, remove blinkers, give new perception and new knowledge based on the foundation of the first degree. It is even to be hoped that some -might return to their home countries having established contacts within Australia that will be of mutual benefit, and not only at the individual level, for years to come.
For a few years I have been the Director of the Nepal Australia Forestry Project. This project, under the aegis of the Australian Development Assistance Bureau, exists primarily to improve forestry in the Himalayan foothills of that beautiful but impoverished land. What a simple statement! To improve forestry! Technically, the problems are not overwhelming. The real problems arise through the national and geographical setting. Take 121/2 million people increasing at 2.2% per annum and 121/2 million cattle, sheep and goats, place them in a country failing from over 8,000 m elevation to 100 metres within 150 km. Supply a rainfall approaching 2 metres in four months, relatively little in the other eight. Resources? Few, except for the beauty of an extraordinarily fragile ecosystem. Use the forest to provide fuel for all domestic and most minor commercial purposes, to provide foliage loppings to maintain most o thb livestock for eight months each year, to provide constructional timoer, berries and resins. The result is disastrous and a cycle of flooding and drought spreading far from Nepal to the millions of Indians and Bangladeshi of, the lndo-Gangetic Plain. Modern "western" forestry based on monoculture plantations has almost no relevance to such a situation. The forester must understand the needs of each small local group; mutual education must take place so that mixed forests can be re-established to meet the multitude of end uses. The appropriate forest technology is akin to that of the mixed deciduous forests of Europe of a few centuries ago, but few universities teach that now. In the social context of Nepal, the simple suggestion may be inappropriate. There is no point in importing the use of spades to a population without shoes nor recommending tree species requiring fertilizers for establishment when none can be afforded for agricultural use.
This issue of appropriate technology is at the root of many problems of development. In 1979, the United Nations will be organizing a special conference to consider it and Australia is preparing material for it. It is to me clearly wrong to introduce mechanised harvesting of trees when there is no local skill, or foreign exchange, to maintain heavy equipment: even worse if there is a huge pool of underemployed. Yet are chainsaws admissible or must all felling be performed by axe, using the greatest number of people possible? To introduce no new techniques is to let the people slip further behind year by year compared with developed societies. What advance, then, can be absorbed without social dislocation? All too often, an advance in agricultural technique has benefited the already better-off, increased the penury of the poorest. We are back again with yet another form of our cost-benefit analysis.
I have spoken at some length of my experiences in Nepal, even though they do not directly have to do with plant pathology, because they have brought home to me as nothing else the need to look at scientific problems in a very wide context. The failure to do so has been the downfall of innumerable foreign aid projects and this same failure bedevils many issues in this country.
A final thought is also derived from my experience in Nepal and similar countries. Where does agricultural science go from here? I do not know but, world-wide, I doubt that it is in the direction using high-energy technology. If I am correct, it is important that the new generation of plant pathologists and agriculturalists should be aware of the energy used by alternative practices. I am reminded of a saying concerning a former generation of foresters that they did not believe in pathogen-induced disease. Dying or unthrifty trees were just growing "off-site".
Although such a view is erroneous, or at best a gross oversimplification, there is an insight into disease distribution and causation that we shall lose to our peril. Most plants will grow in most places, but only if you are rich.
Energy-cheap strategies need not, of course, be oldfashioned. They can be based on new insights. In the realm of soil-borne diseases, the possibilities of utilizing biological control, defined widely, are now far better than ten years ago. The work on take-all in many countries, and not least in Australia, and on avocado root-rot in Queensland, have shown the significance of disease suppressive soils. Biological control has been shown to be no pipe dream, and generally it is not expensive in terms of energy.
Some of you who knew me best whilst I was at the University of Sydney will probably be surprised to hear me speak as I have done. I admit that I am a late convert to many of the views I have expressed. My conversion is probably associated with my present position and to my period as Master of Burgmann College at the Australian National University. In self-defence, late conversion may be no bad thing. I still firmly believe that it is necessary to get a sound first-hand acquaintanceship with research and science before embarking on a voyage into less well charted waters.
And here, Mr. President, I come to my conclusion and those who have closed their eyes in concentration may open them again. I hope, however, that their heads may nod once more in agreeing with me on this. Australia's resources, both material and educational, are immense and must be shared wisely and constructively for the wider common good. This process will be greatly aided if scientists not only think about the wider implications of their work but also occasionally risk their reputations in the turbulent waters where the pure stream of scientific research mixes with the murky ebb and flow of the political, economic and social life of the world.

D. M. Griffin

The Daniel McAlpine Memorial Lecture was presented at the 3rd National Plant Pathology Conference, Melbourne, May, 1978. Professor Griffin is head of the Department of Forestry, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT.