ICOM6

The Organizing Committee is very pleased to host the 6th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MYCORRHIZA (ICOM6), in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The theme chosen for ICOM6 is “Beyond the roots”. The Conference is jointly held by the Federal University of Viçosa and the International Mycorrhiza Society.

Several Brazilian research institutions are actively working to improve the country’s agricultural and forest production, generating technology that has been exported both to other regions of Brazil as well as to other countries. Mycorrhizal research in our country is completing 30 years of activities in almost every aspect of the mycorrhizal associations and it will be a pleasure to celebrate that with you. The Organizing Committee hopes that the Conference will be a place for promoting mycorrhizas as important ecological components, broadening the views on mycorrhizas from their local surroundings to far beyond the roots.

The symbol of our Conference was designed by the ICOM6 secretary Dr. Mauricio Dutra Costa and represents a leaflet of the leguminous plant Caesalpinia echinata Lam., known as pau-brasil. The name “Brazil” was derived from the common name of this species, whose red wood resembles live embers (brasas, in Portuguese, and thence, Brasil). Pau-brasil wood was widely exported to Europe during the colonial times and used to dye cloth. Today, the species is under the threat of extinction and is highly protected. Due to its historical and economic contribution to Brazil, pau-brasil has been chosen as the symbol of ICOM6 as an example of how the importance of mycorrhizal plants can go far beyond the roots.

The Conference bags were made with corn straw by a group of small farmers from Brás Pires, Minas Gerais, under the support and guidance of technicians from EMATER- MG and Instituto Xopotó. Each bag contains a wooden tag made with pruning remains of Samanea tubulosa (Benth.) Barneby & Grimes, commonly known as sete-cascas (seven-barks) because of its thick, corky bark. The Conference badges were also made with sete-cascas wood.