On Thursday 4 June 2026 the IPPS held an online General Assembly.
The date was purposely chosen as it marked the 25th anniversary of the society. On 4 June 2001, at the occasion of the 7th International Parasitic Weed Symposium (meetings that are nowadays called the World Congress on Parasitic Plants, WCPP) , in Nantes, the society held its very first General Assembly marking the launch of the International Parasitic Plant Society. To mark this anniversary we have generated a slide show that can be watched from the IPPS website home page (see picture).
Let me summarize some the main points this year’s General Assembly here for you.
We have 180 members currently, of which 37 student members. With a reserve of well over 10,000 Euro, the society’s financial situation looks good. This is despite the fact that we had to skip one year of our international conference following the postponement of the 18th WCPP. This conference is now planned for 2027 and will hopefully be held in Mexico.
The IPPS online seminars are paused currently but will be resumed in September 2026. Since we have these online seminars, we have had 56 talks and we took a moment to thank all speakers we have had so far.
Apart from the anniversary celebration we had two other highlights during this General Assembly: the appointment of two new Advisory Board members and the awarding of two new Honorary Fellows.
The General Assembly approved the appointment of Satoko Yoshida and Maurizio Vurro as the two new Advisory Board members, replacing outgoing members Julie Scholes and Koichi Yoneyama, who were both thanked for their service. Both new members are well know parasitic plant researchers and have the experience of organizing a WCPP.
The two new Honorary Fellows of the IPPS are Prof. Mike Timko and Prof. Claude dePamphilis. Both have impressive track records in parasitic plant research and we have presented some highlights of their careers during the General Assembly (see meeting slides in the website section ‘members-only-area/society-documents’).
We ended this year’s General Assembly on this high note and we are hopeful that we can have our next assembly in person during the 18th World Congress on Parasitic Plants!
Jonne Rodenburg | President of the IPPS