Moving from Mechanism to Crop Yield Stability

Water availability and quality is the major constrain on plant growth and reproduction. The 2016 GRC on Salinity and Water Stress in Plants will focus on abiotic stress adaptation, crop yield and food security. The conference will bring together researchers from academia and industry with expertise from molecular systems to trait development to discuss progress in elucidating mechanisms and managing challenges associated with water availability and salinity on agriculture and ecosystems.

The meeting will address recent advances in understanding water and salt stress resistance and highlight insights emerging from natural genetic variation, advanced breeding and engineered solutions. Talks will consider mechanisms - from the molecular to the organismic level - that influence cellular activities, developmental programs and whole-plant physiology. Emphasis will be placed on the breadth of impact water and salinity have on plants, their relevance to world food security, and how information gained from model and non-model systems can be translated to crops. Topics will include new knowledge of stress signaling and transduction, ion and water homeostasis, photosynthesis, gene and response regulatory systems, as well as developmental plasticity. Leveraging climate change models and the challenges of pyramiding genes that safeguard productivity under simultaneous or sequential stresses will also be addressed.

In addition to invited speakers, there will be presentations selected from submitted abstracts and applications, ensuring that late-breaking developments are fully represented.