Generation Challenge Programme

Each year, GCP's wide range of partners come together to discuss GCP activities and developments at the GCP Annual Resarch Meeting (ARM). This year's meeting was held in Benoni, South Africa, and brought together some 150 scientists from around the world. Whilst the structure of previous Annual Research Meetings had always been focused on project-centred and specific stand-alone projects, this year's meeting was notably different, with all presentations being organised around four main themes:

1. Exploiting Allelic Diversity
2. Genomic Resources and Gene/Pathway Discovery
3. Marker Development and Breeding Applications
4. Support services and enabling delivery

Day One - Wednesday 12th September
GCP Perspectives

Programme Perspective - GCP Director

SP1 Perspective - JC Glaszmann

SP2 Perspective - R Varshney

SP4 Perspective - T van Hintum

SP5 Perspective - C de Vicente

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PLENARY SESSION I: Stakeholder perspectives on needs and bottlenecks for plant improvement in Africa

S Khoza, (President, Gauteng Farmers’ Union and General Secretary, National African Farmers’ Union, South Africa)

F Samidu, (Managing Director, Seed-Tech, Malawi)

P Fato, (Instituto de Investigação Agrária de Moçambique - IIAM)

R Edema, (Makerere University/AMMANET, Uganda)

J Ininda, (PASS)

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Day Two - Thursday 13th September
PLENARY SESSION II: Exploiting allelic diversity (theme 1)

Revisiting the species complex in potato (M Ghislain)

Relationships among ecotypes in common bean (M Blair)

A worldwide view of maize diversity (M Warburton)

Genome-wide SNP Discovery (OryzaSNP) and Survey (Haploryza) in Rice (K McNally)

Progress in orthologous candidate gene diversity assessment (D This)

Association analysis in a maize diversity panel (M Warburton)

Broadening crop genetic basis in rice (M Lorieux)

Combining decentralised genotyping data for diversity analysis (C Billot)

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BRAINSTORMING PREPARATION I: Which populations for combining crop improvement and genetic analysis?

Concentrating genetic diversity in reference germplasm samples (J-C Glaszmann)

QTL detection and marker assisted selection in mutilparental designs: a case study in temperate maize (A Charcosset on behalf of G Blanc, A Charcosset, A Gallais and L Moreau)

MAGIC: multiparent populations for fine mapping complex traits in crop species (Ian Mackay)

Population structures for legume genetics and genomics (Noel Ellis)

Facilitating access and generation of genetic materials with breeding value and high resolution for genetic analysis (Rajeev Varshney/Hei Leung).

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Evening workshop of Thursday 13th - The role of different partner communities in GCP
Notes taken during these sessions are summarised in the Powerpoint presentations below (presented during the "Report to Plenary session on Sunday 16th September):
• ARIs North (R Tuberosa)
• ARIs South (J Magalhães)
• CGIAR (N Veracruz)
• Private sector (P Freymark)
• CSOs (M Laing)
• NARS (E Okai)

Day Four - Saturday 15th September
PLENARY SESSION III: Genomic resources and gene/pathway discovery (theme 2)

Musa genomic resources (T Sasaki)

Legume genomic resources (D Cook) - those interested in viewing a copy of the presentation should please contact Dr. Cook directly

Allelic imbalance in candidate genes in barley (M Baum)

Al tolerance in sorghum (L Kochian)

Dissection, characterisation and utilisation of disease QTL (R Nelson)

Grain formation (J Bennett)

Growth maintenance under water deficit in maize, rice and wheat (F Tardieu)

GOST, A phylogenomic tool for plant comparative genomics (M Conte and M Rouard)

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BRAINSTORMING PREPARATION II: Recent highlights in crop research

Maize (J Gethi)

Sorghum (T Hash)

Wheat and Barley (P Langridge)

Rice (H Leung)

Roots and tubers (M Fregene)

Legumes (D Hoisington)

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Day Five - Sunday 16th September
PLENARY SESSION IV: Marker development and breeding applications (theme 3)

QxE interactions and their consequences for MAS (F van Eeuwijk)

Unlocking the genetic diversity in groundnut's wild relatives (D Bertioli)

Development and use of markers for virus resistance in cassava: impact on cassava breeding in Africa (E Okogbenin)

MAS for Striga resistance in cowpea and selection of Striga resistant varieties in West and Central Africa (S Muranaka)

Progress and expected impact of Saltol, a salinity tolerance QTL, and Pup1, a P-uptake efficiency QTL, on rice improvement (A Ismail)

Pyramiding of QTLs from diverse origins to improve drought tolerance in rice: results and products in North China and South/Southeast Asia (Z K Li)

Can the deployment of superior alleles of AltSB, a major aluminum tolerance gene in sorghum impact yield in sorghum cultivated on acid soils? (J Magalhães)

Product management within GCP: concepts, tools and examples (P Monneveux)

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PLENARY SESSION V: Support Services and Enabling Delivery (theme 4)

The Project Development Guide (PDG): an online tool for researchers—Introducing the prototype (C de Vicente)

The Asset Inventory System (B. Hanumanth Rao)

Genotyping Support Services: Results from the trial phase (H Gómez)

A GCP Community of Practice: Marker-Assisted Selection of rice in the Mekong basin (T Toojinda & J Siangliw)

From development of cassava genomic resources to cassava improvement (P Rabinowicz)

Ex Ante Impact Assessment of Marker-Assisted Selection Technologies (G Norton)

iMAS: Release of Version 1.0 (S Chandra and D Hoisington)

The GCP Platform: integrating data sources and facilitating analysis (Graham McLaren)

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Reports to plenary - BRAINSTORMING SESSIONS:

Maize (J Gethi) (of which the second session was combined with the Sorghum group)

Sorghum (T Hash) (including feedback from session I, and feedback from session II, which was combined with the Maize group)

Wheat and Barley (P Langridge)

Rice (H Leung)