第三届国际干旱大会－－09年10月11－16日在中国上海召开

第三届国际干旱大会(The 3rd International Conference on Integrated Approaches to Improve Crop Production Under Drought Prone Environments )将于2009年10月11-16日在中国上海召开, 会议有关信息请参见大会网址：http://www.interdrought.org或http://www.interdrought.org.cn/index.jsp。大会面向国外的论文摘要征集工作已告一段落，已有来自60个国家或地区的近380名学者准备前来中国参加本次大会。但是，面向国内专家学者的摘要征集还在继续中，我们热忱欢迎您参加本次大会，分享和交流讨论干旱逆境下有关植物生长发育、产量及品质、抗逆分子遗传与分子生物学等诸多方面的研究成果和热点问题。期望做口头报告者将尽力安排或在专题研讨中报告，视需要也可能增加中文报告专场。

第三届国际干旱大会将提供一个展示和讨论平台，交流利用作物遗传和管理手段增加干旱条件下作物产量及其稳定性的关键问题和策略。近年来在理解植物对干旱胁迫响应和耐受性的分子基础方面取得了巨大进展，众多干旱响应基因及其细胞功能被鉴定出来。这些分子水平的发现与其在大田条件下植株整体水平应用之间严重脱节。虽然在干旱胁迫的细胞和分子方面已有一些精彩的讨论会，但无论是公立、还是私立研究机构，都有多学科交叉讨论的需求：一方面是分子生物学研究，另一方是寻求干旱条件下改善作物表现的实用方法。

考虑到全球气候变暖对作物生产已显现的和预期的问题，国际干旱大会将是一次适时的会议。在不断增加的淡水短缺和全球变暖情形下，农民们正在为维持生计寻求出路。
第三届国际干旱大会主办国非常关注灌溉水源日益不足情况下粮食生产问题。

第三次国际干旱大会的主要任务是连接基础科学进展与在田间整株植物和作物的研究进展，探寻易干旱和缺水农业中把科学技术应用到作物改良和管理的机会。这次大会将介绍干旱条件下提高作物生产所需的研究以及朝着这一方向发展的最有效途径。第三届国际干旱大会同时关注较贫穷的发展中国家，这些国家正面临着用更少水资源生产粮食这一日益严重的问题，来自这些国家的专家和学生们可以恰当地阐明这些问题。

我们将竭尽所能为大会提供舒适和周到的氛围，并诚挚地邀请您参加本次大会。

第三届国际干旱大会组委会
Abraham Blum (大会主席)
张启发(副主席)、罗利军(副主席)、黎志康(委员)


附部分大会日程
Part of the Programme for InterDrought III (Shanghai 11 – 16 October 2009)
(Final list of invited speakers who have agreed to contribute)

Session 1. (12 October am) Introduction and setting the scene.
Water scarcity and food production - global and local scales, drought and poverty, preparing towards impacts of climate change.

Speakers:
Peng Shiqi (Ministry of Agric, China) Water resources and agriculture in China
Qifa Zhang (Wuhan) Maintaining Food Production under Environmental Challenge: the Biologists Response
Graham Farquhar (Canberra), Climate Change
Rowan Sage (U Toronto) C4 Rice

Session 2 (12 Oct pm) Managing crop production under water-limited conditions.
Soil-crop-water management, dryland farming systems, water saving agriculture, impact of dryland agriculture on the environment, new approaches (precision agriculture for dryland farming, remote sensing, decision support systems).
Speakers:

John Kirkegard (CSIRO Canberra) Managing efficient use of water in extensive dryland wheat farming systems
Pasquale Steduto (FAO) Water Scarcity and the FAO model AquaCrop
Kang Shaozhong (CAU), Water saving agriculture in China
Elias Fereres (Cordoba) Deficit Irrigation

Session 3 (13 Oct am) Plant growth and the formation of yield under water-limited conditions.
Regulation of growth of roots and shoots, drought stress and the reproductive process, the regulation of plant water fluxes and the water status of plants, WUE, oxidative stress - does it affect field productivity?.

Speakers:
Francois Tardieu (INRA Montpellier), Genetic variability of growth maintenance mechanisms
Bob Sharp (Missouri), Genomics of root growth
Yang Jianchang (Yangzhou), Increase in water use efficiency and grain yield through the manipulation of harvest index in rice

Session 4 (13 Oct pm and 14 Oct am) Molecular and physiological bases of plant adaptation to drought. I.
Stress perception and signal transduction, transcriptional response. Protein expression, modification and interaction, metabolomics

Speakers:
Jian-Kang Zhu (UC Riverside) Understanding and improving salt and drought stress tolerance in plants
Christophe Maurel (INRA Montpellier), Aquaporins: molecular gears for adjusting plant hydraulics to a changing environment
Yves Gibon (INRA, Bordeaux), Metabolomics of Drought
Manuela Chaves (UTL) Photosynthesis and C metabolism
Frank Hochholdinger (Tubingen), Genetic dissection of maize root system development
John Mullet (Texas A and M), Complex drought resistance traits
Jia Wensuo (CAU) What genes should we clone for water saving agriculture
Mel Oliver (USDA) Exploiting the genomes of dehydration/desiccation-tolerant species in crop improvement strategies

Session 5. (14 Oct pm) Applied genomics and genetics of drought resistance.
Candidate genes, QTL mapping and cloning, reverse-genetics approaches, genetic resources.

Speakers:
Zhikang Li (CAAS) Epigenetic and genetic control of drought tolerance in rice
Mike Stephens (Monsanto)
Henry Nguyen (Missouri) Transcriptomics and proteomics of root responses to drought in soybean
Luo Lijun (SAGC) Improving the drought tolerance of rice

Session 6 (15 Oct am and pm) Breeding for water-limited environments.
Conventional phenotypic selection; trait-based MAS; functional genomics approaches. What works, what doesn’t, and why?

Speakers:
Greg Rebetzke (CSIRO Canberra), Physiology-based breeding
Marianne Banziger (CIMMYT), Maize and Drought stress
Gary Atlin (CIMMYT), Using information from managed-stress drought environments in practical cultivar development
Jing Rui-lian (CAAS), Wheat drought breeding in China
Rattan Yadav (IBERS) Genetics, physiology, breeding and multi environment testing of a major QTL contributing to yield of pearl millet in drought stress conditions
Venuprasad Ramaiah (AVRDC- ICRISAT) QTLs with large effects on grain yield under water-limited conditions in rice

Session 7 (16 Oct am) Integrated approaches to crop improvement under water-limited conditions.
G*M*E approach, plant and crop design, phenotyping, gene-to-phenotype prediction/modeling, crop improvement systems.

Speakers:
Charlie Messina (Pioneer) Genomics and genetics of yield
Rachid Serraj (IRRI) Drought resistance improvement for increased rainfed rice production - progress and perspectives
Bettina Berger (ACPFG) High throughput phenotyping
Lizhong Xiong (HAU) Combining facilitated and in-field screening methods for basic and application studies of drought resistance in rice
Graeme Hammer (Queensland), Modelling G*M*E interactions to design and breed crops with improved water productivity

Session 8 (16 Oct pm). Future challenges and opportunities in drought research.
New directions, new techniques, new tools, education & training, public and private R&D, laboratory-to-field delivery.

Speakers:
Peter Langridge (ACPFG Adelaide), New tools in Plant Improvement
Bill Davies (Lancaster), Laboratory to field delivery
Bram Govaerts (CIMMYT) Conservation Agriculture
　
Closing Summary:
Abraham Blum (Plantstress.com). Epilogue: Enhancing Plant Production under Drought Stress – What’s Working and What’s Not
Closing Keynote: John Boyer (Maine)


Rice & Drought Satellite Workshop
(Shanghai, China, 17 Oct. 2009)
Rationale

The 3rd International Conference on Integrated Approaches to Improve Crop Production Under Drought-Prone Environments will be organized on October 11-16, 2009 in Shanghai, China. http://www.interdrought.org

Given the strategic importance of future research on water scarcity and rice in Asia and globally, a one-day satellite meeting will be organized by IRRI to discuss the recent research breakthroughs and future prospects of drought resistance frontiers in rice.

The main purpose of the Rice & Drought satellite workshop is to share information and coordinate the research activities of the ongoing projects on drought resistance in rice (IRRI-DFP, STRASA, GCP, SGR, etc.). Short presentations (15 min) will introduce the main research objectives and project outputs and highlight the most recent findings, conclusions, and future plans.