Professor Phil Russell retired from the FRAC Steering Committee at the end of 2013. Phil has been a respected scientific expert in fungicide resistance and its management for many years and has been a key and long-serving member of FRAC since its foundation in 1982. Phil was initially a member of the FRAC UK Phenylamide Working Group in 1984, and became a member of the FRAC Steering Committee, as Communications Officer, in 1986. He was the chairman of FRAC during the period 1994-2001. More recently he served as Secretary / Treasurer since 2005. He made many significant contributions to FRAC during his time with the organisation, including compiling and maintaining the list of resistant plant pathogens, advising on Monographs 1 and 2 and authoring FRAC monograph Nr 3 which has become one of the most referred to publications produced by FRAC. The FRAC Steering Committee are very grateful to Phil for all his hard work and dedication to FRAC and the management of fungicide resistance and would like to wish him health and happiness for the future.

At the December Steering Committee meeting, three new members were elected to the FRAC Steering committee: Ms. Birgit Foster, (Syngenta, Switzerland) was elected as the new Secretary/Treasurer of FRAC. Birgit succeeds Prof. Phil Russell. Dr. Gerd Stammler (BASF, Germany) succeeds Dr. Michael Merk (BASF, Italyy) as the CAA WG Chair and Dr. Helge Sierotzki, Syngenta (Basel, Switzerland) succeeds Dr. Karl-Heinz Lorenz (BASF, Germany) as the new Banana group chair. We thank Phil, Karl-Heinz and Michael for their dedication and service to the FRAC organization.

...are now online. The Minutes of the 2013 WG meetings and the 2014 use recommendations are now online for the QoI and CAA working groups.

The 2013 monitoring data for the SBI fungicides have been reviewed by the FRAC SBI Working Group The use recommendations for 2014 are also available. Further updates have been made in the segments Membership, and Introduction and General Information.
The SBI-class III – Keto-Reductase-Inhibitors (KRI) - now encompass two molecules.

The 2014 FRAC Code List© and Mode of Action Poster© were revised to include mandestrobin in C3 (inhibition of complex III cytrochrome bc1 at Qo site), oxathiapiprolin in U15 (inhibition of oxysterol binding protein proposed) and tebufloquin in U16 (inhibition of complex III cytochrome bc1, unknown binding site proposed) and move ametoctradin to C8 (complex III cytochrome bc1 at Qo site stigmatellin binding subsite) based on new binding information.