Experts from ICS Participated in the 3rd IWC

The 3rd International Wheat Congress (3^rd IWC) was held in Perth, Australia, from September 22nd to 27th, 2024. 13 experts in the field of wheat from the Institute of Crops Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (ICS-CAAS), who were invited by the organizing committee of the 3^rd IWC, attended the event. Professor Luxiang Liu, the Executive Director General of ICS-CAAS, and five other experts participated in the roundtable discussion or delivered academic reports, while Professor Jinpeng Zhang and six other experts presented posters at the conference.

During the roundtable discussion session of the conference, Professor Liu delivered a keynote speech on the topic of "Wheat Production, Research & Trade in Major Wheat Growing Geographies." He introduced the current status of China's wheat industry development, characterized by continuous increase in total wheat production driven by yield-per-unit-area enhancements, and compared it with other global countries. Liu also explored the new challenges posed by factors such as consumption growth and climate change to the future development of wheat in China and globally, and proposed a Chinese solution to accelerate the green transformation of the wheat industry through seed innovation and the national industrial technology system. Professor Zhonghu He introduced the achievements and future prospects of the cooperation between ICS-CAAS and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in keynote speech on the topic of "Wheat Breeding Organizations". He summarized the significant contributions made through this bilateral cooperation to global wheat quality and disease-resistant breeding, as well as talent cultivation.

During the Plenary Session, Professor Xueyong Zhang presented an academic report on wheat genomics and genetic diversity, introducing the achievements of wheat genomic breeding in China and the progress in pan-genome research of wheat. Professor Ping Yang delivered an academic report on gene editing for improving wheat varieties resistant to yellow mosaic disease, presenting the global incidence of soil-borne yellow mosaic disease and an overview of research on the discovery of antiviral genes in wheat and barley. He also shared the application of gene editing technology in wheat resistance breeding.

During the Pre-congress Workshops, Professor Long Mao presented an academic report on gene mining for coordinated wheat improvement, introducing the current status of gene mining for coordinated wheat improvement using wheat micro-core germplasm in China, and showcasing significant progress in collaboratively enhancing important traits such as wheat yield. Professor Huijun Guo shared advancements on high-throughput wheat mutant resources enhancing novel genes/alleles discovery and functional gene characterization. She presented the development of wheat TILLING mutant resource and broad-spectrium phenotypic mutant resource, as well as their applications in wheat forward and reverse genetics.

The aforementioned reports garnered extensive attention from conference participants and received unanimous acclaim from international counterparts, thereby elevating China's international standing in wheat scientific and technological innovation. These reports have presented significant opportunities for international collaboration in crucial areas such as wheat basic research and variety development in China.

The IWC is the most prestigious and academically influential wheat academic event in the world, formed through the merger of the International Wheat Genetics Symposium (IWGS) and IWC. The 1st IWC was held in Saskatoon, Canada, in July 2019, hosted by the University of Saskatchewan. The 2nd IWC, originally scheduled for 2021, was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and held in Beijing, China, from September 11-15, 2022, organized by ICS-CAAS and the Crop Science Society of China. The 3rd IWC was held in Perth, Australia, hosted by Murdoch University. It is reported that this time it brought together over 870 researchers, policymakers, and corporate breeders from 52 countries worldwide in Perth. The congress was divided into two phases: preliminary report seminars and plenary sessions, featuring 16 preliminary report seminars, 10 plenary talks, and 3 roundtable discussions, along with more than 280 poster presentations and 70 presenters from major wheat-producing countries worldwide. The sessions covered various aspects of wheat research, including germplasm resources, genetics and breeding, genomics, agronomy, processing, and trade. The fourth International Wheat Congress will be held in Bologna, Italy, from May 25-29, 2026.