On the afternoon of November 18, the 44th High-end Plant Protection Forum sponsored by College of Plant Sciences & Technology was held in Lecture Hall, 1st Floor, Molecular Building, which attracted over 100 teachers and students. The distinguished research presenters include Professor Peng Youliang of China Agricultural University and Professor Chen Xuexin of Zhejiang University, both of whom are Yangtze River scholars and winners of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Professor Sun Wenxian of Jilin University, a Yangtze River scholar, and other winners of National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Wang Chenzhu of Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（IOZ）and Professor Cai Wangzhi of China Agricultural University, all sharing their achievements in plant protection. The opening ceremony was presided over by Professor Jiang Daohong, College of Plant Sciences & Technology, HZAU.
In his presentation “Theory and Practice of Breeding Blast Resistance Rice Varieties”, Professor Peng pointed out the wide spread of rice blast in China and its severe damage to rice with detailed graphs, then he discussed its causation and showed the achievements made in disease resistance research. He also introduced practical breeding strategies and identification methods for rice blast resistant varieties. In addition, he emphasized that the identification of pathogen-specific and pathogenic-essential proteins in Cladophora can provide new potential clues for the design of environment-friendly fungicides.
Professor Sun Wenxian revealed that a newly emerging disease, rice false smut, which was caused by ustilaginoidea virens, has become one of the most serious rice diseases in China in his report entitled “Pathogenic Molecular Mechanism of Rice False Smut”. Listing the symptoms and harm of rice false smut, Professor Sun emphasized that it will significantly reduce the fertility of mice. Beginning with the life cycle of rice false smut, he introduced molecular basis of ustilaginoidea virens for infecting the floral organ, synthetic pathway and pathogenicity of ustilagin as well as the pathogenic molecular mechanism of effector protein, and then summarized the key pathogenic factors. He expressed that effector protein SCRE 1 can suppress the immune response of host by inhibiting its ATPase activity when answering the question “Can applying SCRE1 peptide exogenously inhibit innate immunity in rice ?”
Then, Professor Chen Xuexin said that parasitic wasps are the key groups in the research on biological interaction mechanism and precise regulation of pests in his presentation “the Mechanism of Parasitic Wasps Regulating Hosts” and share with the attendees his research achievements on four aspects: “How many parasitic wasps are there in the ecosystem?” “How do parasitic wasps grow in or on the host body?” “How parasitoids regulate host (pest) in nature effectively?” “Why is parasitic wasp so successful in evolving into such a large group?”。
Taking helicoverpa assulta and helicoverpa armigera as examples, Researcher Wang Chenzhu explored the ways of how female insects produce the reverse ratio sex pheromone and how male insects encode it. He showed the curve of Z11-16AId-and-Z9-16AId-dose to antennal-lobe-response and other data in his lecture “the Behavioral Isolation of Two Sibling Helicoverpa Species”.
In his address “Opportunities and Challenges for Insect Taxonomists in the Genome Era”, Professor Cai Wanzhi said that “making use of insects, the largest group in the animal kingdom” reveals the importance of insect taxonomists who are the backup force of national defense and international trade. While introducing the content and levels of α, β, γ classification and the current opportunities in diversity research, he highlighted the difficulties that China is facing in the classification of insect diversity: a small and aging teams; inadequate accumulated specimens, weak theory and methods, and proposed the eight-word policy to ease the situation, namely talents, fund, material, theory, practice, cooperation, universality, and constancy. Finally, he expressed his ardent blessings to HZAU by an original palindromic poem.
Source: http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2018/1121/53116.shtml
Translated by Zhang Zi
Supervised by Zeng Wenhua
