The 2012 ASHS Annual Conference

The InterAmerican Society for Tropical Horticulture (ISTH – www.iasth.org) was founded 61 years ago (1951) in the USA, as the Caribbean Group of the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS). During the initial period (1951–1957) were memorable the efforts of Wilson Popenoe, since he was the Society's first Secretary-Treasurer-Executive. For several years the personal dedication of others important selfless volunteers, such as Ernesto H. Cásseres (1958–1970), Carlos Enrique Fernandez (1972–1976), Franklin W. Martin (1977–1983), Carl W. Campbell (1984–1997), and Richard J. Campbell (1998–2008), also was decisive to existence and maintenance of the group as a scientific society. At the beginning, founders aimed to establish a party of countries from the Caribbean Region to reunite more often not only to exchange information on tropical horticultural crops, but also to disseminate it through newsletters and a scientific journal. The group is, ever since, the only tropical American scientific society dedicated to gather and spread information on tropical horticultural production. As time passed and people from other countries joined in, the name was changed to ASHS—Tropical Region, in 1966. Another change happened in 1986, when, for legal reasons, the group was separated from the ASHS adopting its current name. Since 1957 The Proceedings of the ISTH had been the main scientific publication. During more than 50 years we had the free contribution of various dedicated and committed editors, such as: Ernesto H. Casseres, J. Robert Hunter, Robert. P. Armour, Luis A. Montoya, Danilo Ríos-Castaño, Carlos Enrique Fernández, Simon E. Malo, L. Antonio Lizana, Mary Lamberts, Bruce Schaffer, Carl W. Campbell, Jonathan H. Crane, and Richard J. Campbell. From 1951 to 1966 it was published as Proceedings of the ASHS - Caribbean Region (ISSN-0066-0116), from 1967 to 1985 as Proceedings of the ASHS—Tropical Region (ISSN-0254-2528) and from 1986 to 2008 as Proceedings of the ISTH (ISSN-0254-2528). Because of this and others reasons, the active members of ISTH deliberated for a new a change, following the evolution of all scientific societies. Therefore, from the volume 53 is being published as Journal of the ISTH and with new ISSNs (Print 2237-4256 and Online 2237-4264). Each paper published in the whole collection of volumes are available to download (www.journal.iasth.org) by active members. Furthermore, from now on, as a result of an agreement, it was be also possible to access the papers in PubHort (www.pubhort.org) from International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS).