I'm not entirely sure what the original purpose was for these brief sorties into the past. An attempt to leven the Journal with some mildly amusing nostalgia, perhaps. With the adoption of a rolling five-year period to look back at the emphasis has changed somewhat. Five years ago is still near enough to be relevant to the present but distant enough to sometimes show the trends that are occurring. Not all of them unfortunately, trends for the better. The August 2001 Journal contained a report of theHRI Mushroom Open Day. Then an annual event at which growers were brought up to date with the past year's HDC (Industry- funded) research programme. In 2001 the morning lectures were devoted solely to mushroom Virus X, a clear indication of the seriousness of the problem at that time. The image above is of the three speakers. Participation from delegates was so great that lunch was delayed by more than half an hour, cause for serious criticism by some but not, of course, from the growers and cornposters present. The goats sorted themselves from the sheep.
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