The International Symposium of Horticultural Plant Biology 2023, organized by the Department of Science and Technology of Hubei Province and Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU), was held in Wuhan, China, from November 8 to 9.
The symposium aimed to showcase the latest achievements in horticultural science and technology, and promote the innovation and development of international horticultural disciplines.
The theme of the symposium was “Frontiers in Horticultural Plant Biology”. Twenty-six scholars from various universities and research institutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Spain, China, and other countries shared their latest research results and discussed the frontier progress of horticultural plant biology research through online and onsite modes. More than 150 scholars and graduate students from universities and research institutions at home and abroad participated in this symposium.
The opening ceremony was hosted by Qiang Xu, Director of the National Key Laboratory for Germplasm Innovation & Utilization of Horticultural Crops, and attended by Xiuxin Deng, academician and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of HZAU (online), Xia Song, deputy director of the Department of Science and Technology of Hubei Province, Yang Shaobo, vice president of HZAU, and others. They delivered speeches respectively, expressing their support and expectations for the symposium and the horticultural discipline.
After the opening ceremony, five keynote speakers gave speeches on topics such as plant resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, the dynamics of organelles during meiosis, wound-induced regeneration, the genetic and molecular mechanisms of lettuce heading, and programmed transcriptional slippage of plant RNA viruses. During the two-day symposium, a total of 26 academic reports were held, covering aspects such as horticultural genomics, horticultural product quality formation and regulation, horticultural plant environmental interaction, stress response, horticultural plant development and evolution, hormone signal transduction, epigenetics, and horticultural crops breeding and grafting. The symposium also set up a student forum, where doctoral students, master students, and undergraduates from HZAU gave English reports on topics such as the origin and re-domestication of sweet orange, the regulation of citrus peel color, the dynamic changes of black tea components, ethylene-induced petal senescence in carnation, and the application of indicator species in biodiversity conservation.
The International Symposium on Horticultural Plant Biology is an important series of activities of the first “Donghu Forum”, a characteristic event of “Science Popularization + Science and Technology Innovation” held by the Hubei Provincial Government in Wuhan, aiming to promote the integration and development of scientific and technological innovation and popularization, and accelerate the construction of the Wuhan Science and Technology Innovation Center. The symposium is expected to promote the communication and exchange of the global horticultural academic community, showcase the latest research results and application technologies of international horticultural science and technology, and promote the innovation and development of horticultural disciplines.
(Reporters: Xu Hang, Zheng Huan, Shoaib Munir), (Reviewers: Sun Miao, Wang Pengwei)
