HZAU’s 6-member Cotton Team led by Prof. Zhang Xianlong attended the Sixth World Cotton Research Conference and 2016 ICGI Conference in Brazil. 576 scientists in cotton studies from 42 countries including the US, China, Australia, India and France were present at the meeting. The once-every-four-year WCRC is the most influential academic event in cotton research for discussion on the latest development in cotton breeding, cultivation, growth, pest control and sustainable production. ICGI, a biannual conference in basic cotton studies, is held to report the research development in cotton genomes and functional genomes. HZAU was the host of ICGI in 2014.
Prof. Zhang, as one of the ten invited speakers at the WARC-ICGI meeting, delivered a plenary report “Understanding cotton fiber development based on sequencing data and functional analysis of individual gene”. He introduced the findings of the team over the past 5 years in fiber development mechanism and quality fiber genes. Zhu Longfu, Lin Zhongxu, Jin Shuangxia and Tu Lili displayed in their speeches the research mechanism and the latest progress of HZAU Cotton Team. Participants spoke highly of Zhang’s report and invited Prof. Zhang to visit their countries to strengthen cooperation. Prof. Zhang encouraged foreign students to work on Ph.D or work as post-doc in HZAU. The team’s research was acknowledged by Prof. David Stelly, the chairman of ICGI. Jin Shuangxia and Tu Lili were granted the Travel Award, worth 800 $by ICGI committee.
After the meeting, the team visited SLC Agricola cotton farm. SLC Agricola, the largest Brazilian agricultural production corporate found in 1977, is specialized in production of soybean, corn and cotton. It has 16 farms in 6 states in Brazil, covering a sown area of 460 thousand hectare in 2014/15, among which 98.5thousand hectares are of cotton. The company provides one-stop service from cotton production to processing, with world-class mechanization and automation.
(By Gong Wei)
http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2016/0514/45539.shtml
