Plant Breeding for Drought Tolerance Symposium
June 21-22, 2012
Our second biennial symposium on Plant Breeding for Drought Tolerance was held on the Colorado State University campus in June, 2012, with over 80 participants. The event coincided with the final two days of the field-oriented short course on this same theme. The purpose of the symposium is to provide a forum for exchange between plant physiologists, breeders, geneticists, and agronomists in order to continue the positive trends in improving crop productivity under limited moisture conditions.
The meeting consisted of thought-provoking presentations by invited speakers and a volunteered poster session. We were fortunate to have two eminent scientists to bookend the symposium: Dr. John S. Boyer, E.I. DuPont Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware, opened the meeting with a summary of his seminal work on the effects of water availability on early reproductive processes. Dr. John Passioura, emeritus scientist at CSIRO Plant Industry in Canberra, wrapped up the symposium by reviewing the advances that have been made in breeding for drought tolerance and the likely avenues for continued progress. He emphasized the need to create the right working environments for breeders, prebreeders, crop physiologists, and agronomists to interact.
PowerPoint files and videos of most of the presentations are available by following the links in the table below.
| Speaker | Affiliation | Talk Title | Video |
| Pat Byrne | Colorado State University | Plant Breeding for Drought Tolerance | |
| John Boyer | University of Delaware | Water deficits and yield in maize | MP4 |
| Steve Becker | Colorado State University | Exploitation of synthetic wheat for improvement of drought tolerance | MP4 |
| Eduardo Blumwald | University of California at Davis | Cytokinin-induced modifications of source-sink relationships lead to enhanced crop stress tolerance | MP4 |
| Tom Juenger | University of Texas | Drought adapatation in switchgrass | MP4 |
| Ryan Rapp | Transgenic Approaches to increasing Plant WUE | ||
| Amelia Henry | International Rice Research Institute | Root traits behind major-effect drought-yield QTLs in rice | MP4 |
| Dave Des Marais | University of Texas | The genomic basis of local adaptation to climate in Arabidopsis | MP4 |
| Louise Comas | USDA-ARS | Root dynamics and functioning governed by biological and environmental factors | MP4 |
| Mark Cooper | Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc. | Breeding for drought tolerance: Taking aim at target environments | |
| Andy Pereira | University of Arkansas | Systems level analysis of drought stress response interactions with growth and yield | MP4 |
| Sean Cutler | University of California at Riverside | Targeting the ABA signaling pathway for improved plant stress tolerance | MP4 |
| John Passioura | CSIRO | Phenotyping for drought tolerance: when is it useful to plant breeders? | MP4 |
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This program is partially funded by a grant from USDA-NIFA. 