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First announcement June 27 – July 1, 2011, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) II International Symposium on Underutilized Plants: Crops for the Future – Beyond Food Security. First announcement available online at http://www.cffsymposium2011.org/news_and_updates.html Info: Festo John Massawe, Nottingham University Malaysia Campus, School of Biosciences, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyih, Malaysia. Phone: (60)389248218, Fax: (60)389248018 E-mail: festo.massawe@nottingham.edu.my E-mail symposium: [...]

November 3-4, 2011, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia (initially scheduled for November 2010)International Symposium on Pyrethrum, The Natural Insecticide: Scientific and Industrial Developments in the Renewal of a Traditional Industry. For more details and to download the first announcement check out http://www.ishs.org/calendar/

The world’s largest scientific repository of fruits and berries, outside St Petersburg, Russia, could be bulldozed later this year to make way for new homes. This week Cary Fowler, director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust in Rome, Italy, called for scientists to intervene to prevent “the largest intentional, preventable loss of crop diversity in [...]

Preliminary announcement July 16-20, 2012, Beijing (China): International Conference on Germplasm of Ornamentals. Info: Prof. Qi Xiang Zhang, College of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, No.35, Qinghua East Road-Haidian Dist., Beijing 100083, China. Phone: (86)1062338005, Fax: (86)1062336126, E-mail: zqx@bjfu.edu.cn or Dr. Guijun Yan, School of Plant Biology MO84, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling [...]

Acta Horticulturae 859: International Symposium on Molecular Markers in Horticulture (ISBN 978-90-66052-28-4) is available. Check out www.actahort.org

On Monday 19 April the Ministers of Economic Affairs and of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality in the Netherlands sent a letter to the Netherlands Parliament concerning the role of patent law in plant breeding. This letter was accompanied by the report “Breeding Business”, compiled by Wageningen UR as requested by the Dutch Government. In [...]

March 19-23, 2011, Davis, CA (United States of America): I International Symposium on Wild Relatives of Subtropical and Temperate Fruit and Nut Crops. First Announcement available: http://wildcrops2011.ucdavis.edu Organized under the auspices of the International Society of Horticultural Sciences and hosted by the USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository, Davis, in cooperation with the Plant Sciences Department [...]

Over the last couple of weeks the following Acta Horticulturae titles have been released: Acta Horticulturae 845; VII International Congress on Hazelnut (ISBN 9789066057128 ), Acta Horticulturae 846; VII International Workshop on Sap Flow (ISBN 9789066056824 ), Acta Horticulturae 847; IX International Symposium on Postharvest Quality of Ornamental Plants (ISBN 9789066056923 ) and Acta Horticulturae [...]

China has set up its first national seed bank as part of the country’s efforts to protect biodiversity. The Southwest China Germplasm Bank of Wild Species was declared operational at an opening ceremony 24 November, 2009. The seed bank, established at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Kunming Institute of Botany in Yunnan Province, contains more [...]

When civilization coughs up its final death rattle, one of the last bastions of mankind’s survival will lie near Corvallis behind a modest sign touting a simple mantra: “Preserving plant genetic resources for all time.” In a building guarded only by a standard burglar alarm and a handful of exterior security cameras, scientists at the [...]