Dear colleagues,

The growing season 2021 has started step by step in Southern Finland. We had to wait until 11^th May to enjoy the first day with day temperature above +20 °C and heavy clay soils are still too wet to start seedbed tillage for spring cereals. An ongoing joint outdoor pot experiment with Sonchus arvensis in Germany, Norway and here in Finland gives me some perspective about the progress of spring and plant growth; we are about one month behind our colleagues in Rostock. But we will close the gap during the light summer nights!

The EWRS has been active with some topics although our key activity, scientific physical workshops organized by EWRS working groups, has been negatively affected by the still prevailing pandemic. Instead, webinar series consisting altogether 10 presentations dedicated to weeds caught your interest; there were almost 300 registrations for the first webinar session and the attention remained towards the end. All webinar recordings are now available in the EWRS web site for members.

The Editorial Board of Weed Research has met in online meeting in March. Alison Haughton, Editor in Chief, and Paul Neve chaired the meeting in which the prospects for the journal were discussed. The EWRS Board received a good number of ideas and suggestions how to enhance the review process, increase the number of published articles and maintain the high quality of Weed Research. I would like thank all colleagues involved in handling the manuscripts. Feel free to contact Alison or Paul if you are interested in joining the EB. 

We also have an open position for the EWRS Vice President during 2022-2023. All members are welcome to start thinking and proposing candidates for this key position of EWRS. The formal Call for Elections will be sent later this year. You may even encourage yourself for nomination. 

The EWRS ExCom, responsible for day-to-day management of Society, held an online meeting earlier this week. Some actual topics were discussed and proposals will be forwarded to the Board for further handling and approval. We have set an optimistic goal to organize physical meetings for the SciCom and Board in early autumn. Naturally, adapted to the travel restrictions at the EU and national level at that time. 

I wish you all a successful kick-off for the Summer 2021 and all the best with the field experiments!

Jukka Salonen, EWRS President
14 May 2021

 

PHOTO:  EWRS President is active in controlling weedy trees in the forest.