Dear colleagues and Dear Participant to the ISHS Plant Bioregulators in Fruit Production 2022,
I really hope you are staying healthy and safe.

The COVID pandemic situation has impacted on our life, imposing heavy restriction in our daily life, especially for what concern our working style and travelling. Although it is impossible (or very hard) to predict how the situation will be next September, surely most of the limitations that are governing our lives will still remain, making a ‘normal’ live in-person meeting unfeasible. Because of this, after discussing with ISHS, we decided that the show must go on, therefore, to keep the symposium alive, it has to be necessarily converted into a virtual edition.

I am fully aware that a virtual meeting will be totally different from what we are used to, waiving to what makes a symposium what it should be, such as meeting people, talking to colleagues and friends, coffee breaks, good food and wine (remember, it was supposed to be in Italy!) and visiting amazing places. This meeting takes place once every four years, thus it is important to keep the regular agenda. Again, it won’t be the same, but it is also crucial to give a sign that this community is still active.

This new style of the meeting will be organized through a virtual off-line system. All of you are invited to participate offering interesting oral and poster contributions that will be make visible through a new website that will be ad hoc designed for this purpose. I am also aware that in this new scenario the discussion and the exchange of ideas will be completely avoided, but considering the high internationality of this community, this system will offer the best flexibility to people from all over the world to attend this meeting regardless the time zones.

The system will remain in place for two months, giving the possibility to anyone to have access anytime to watch the works submitted. On the website there will be also a space dedicated to the nomination of the next (hopefully normal) symposium. With the hope that COVID will be a past memory by that time, I invite volunteers to present their intention to host the next PGR symposium.

With the hope to see many of you registered to this meeting I extend my very best wishes.

The convener
Prof. Fabrizio Costa