The voting for the ISPA Board of Directors wrapped up just ahead of the conference on Sunday, June 24th. Two new members were voted to the board. 

Many thanks to all candidates and those who participated in the voting. 

 

Monday evening at the 14th ICPA several regional meetings were held. Below are the brief notes from these meetings. 

The Canadian Community was invited to a meeting in the evening of June 25, 2018 from 6:30-8:00 PM. The meeting started by a welcome and an introduction by Athyna Cambouris. Thirty three participants attended the meeting with roughly 35% from government agencies, 40% from academia and 25% from industry. All the participants introduced themselves. Dr Cambouris led discussion on ideas, plans, and expectations for the next two years. She provided information on the role of Country Representatives at the ISPA. Dr. Louis Longchamps from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Dr. Asim Biswas from University of Guelph were nominated as Country Reps for Canada. Discussions then took place on the possibility to develop a Canadian network for PA research via the ISPA Canadian Community.

About 15 people attended this short session. One topic of discussion was to suggest USA country representatives, as that position is currently vacant. Several good suggestions were received and will be pursued.

Tuesday evening at ICPA several community meetings were held. Below are the brief notes from these meetings. 

The meeting started at 6:35 pm with 11 people in attendance. After introductions, a discussion occurred about changing the focus of the OFDS Community from sharing of field-scale trial data collected on production farms to methods, protocols and analysis of on-farm experimentation. An important goal for the new Community could be to publish a compendium of methods for on-farm experimentation on the ISPA community web site within 2-3 years. Collectively, the suggestions amount to the following possible targets to work toward until the next Community meeting: 1) starting the construction of an "OFE Wiki" including definitions, projects 1-pager descriptions, scripts, expertise contacts and software recommendations, exercises with (training/non real) databases, repository of protocols and existing farmer/extension guides; 2) developing a message board for Community members to post specific needs, connect people swiftly and conveniently (demand/offer), and provide a platform for rapid feedback on emerging directions. Myrtille Lacoste from Curtin University, Australia and Daniel Kindred from ADAS, UK volunteered to become the Presiding Leader and Vice Leader for the new On-Farm Experimentation Community. Tom Morris and Nicolas Tremblay will help to obtain ISPA Board approval and make the transition from the OFDS Community to the On-Farm Experimentation Community. The complete minutes of the meeting are available on the Community website.

The primary objective for this meeting was to discuss and refine plans for two specialty conferences to be held in North America in 2019. Pedometrics 2019 will be held in Guelph, Ontario, Canada June 4-7, 2019, hosted by Asim Biswas and colleagues from the University of Guelph. The 6th Global Workshop on Proximal Soil Sensing will be held in Columbia, Missouri, USA May 28-31, 2019, hosted by Ken Sudduth and colleagues from USDA-ARS at the University of Missouri. A good discussion provided the conference organizers with ideas related to session topics, field tours, and program planning. The group also discussed the potential of forming an ISPA community focusing on sensor systems. A few ideas were proposed, but further discussion will be needed before moving forward.

The PNM Community organized a business meeting in the evening of June 26, 2018 from 6:40-7:30 PM. The meeting started by a welcome and introduction of PNM community by Yuxin Miao, the current community leader. Then all the participants introduced themselves. Yuxin Miao then gave an update on the sessions organized by PNM community in ECPA 2017 and ICPA2018, and the special issue on Remote Sensing for Precision Nitrogen Management in the journal of Remote Sensing. Although the deadline is Dec. 31, 2019, accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. After the updates, the community conducted an election of vice leader. Dr. Athyna Cambouris from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was elected. Dr. Raj Khosla will be the community leader for 2018-2020, and he led discussions on ideas and plans for the next two years. At the meeting, the community pointed out the need to have a choice in the ISPA website for ISPA members to select one or more communities for them to join.