Second day of the 2010 Technical workshop started with Session 4 on ‘Molecular Studies of Rust Pathogens chaired by Solomon Assefa (DG of Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research):
- Sophien Kamoun (The Sanisbury Laboratory, John Innes Center, UK) focused on Exploiting Pathogen Effectors in Breeding and Deployment of Disease Resistance (N/A)
- ‘How sweet is Parasitic Life?’ asked Ralf Voegele (Hohenheim University, Germany) in his presentation describing nutrient uptake in rust fungi
- One of few women scientists in the workshop, Cristina Cuomo (Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, USA), presented Comparative Genomics of Rust Fungi
To the session 5 on ‘Pathogen Evolution’ chaired by M. Yaqub Mujahid (National Agricultural Research Center, Pakistan) included:
- Presentation about Role of Berberis spp. as alternate host in generating new races of Puccinia graminis and P. striiformis by Yue Jin (USDA Cereal Disease Laboratory, USA)
- Zak Pretorius (University of Free State, South Africa) talked about Characterization of Two New Wheat Stem Rust Races within the Ug99 Lineage in South Africa
During the special luncheon ‘Jeanie Borlaug Laube’s Women in Triticum Award’ was presented to the first 5 awardees – Hale Ann Tufan (Turkey); Jemanesh Kifetew Haile (Ethiopia); Esraa Alwan (ICARDA), Jessica Rutkoski (USA) and Maricelis Acevedo (USA), followed by special presentation by Eija Pehu (The World Bank) on ‘Gender equity in agricultural research and extension’
Thomas Lumpkin (DG of CIMMYT, Mexico) chaired the session 6 focused on ‘Advancing Rust Resistance Breeding: Germplasm and Tools’:
- H. Leung (IRRI, Philippines) presented Molecular basis of Rice Non-host Immunity to Cereal Rusts
- Breeding advances in the area of Non-race Specific Resistance to Rusts in CIMMYT Spring Wheats was summarized by Ravi Singh (CIMMYT, Mexico)
- Evans Lagudah (CSIRO, Australia) followed with presentation about Molecular Genetics and Pre-breeding Issues of the Non-race Specific Resistance
- Update on The status of Genetic Resources and Introgressions for Race-Specific Stem Rust Resistance was prepared by Matthew Rouse (Uni of MInnesota, USA)
- Scot Hulbert (WSU, USA) talked about Suppression and Expression of Rust Genes in Wheat Plants and
- Mark Sorrels (Cornell Uni, USA) focused his talk on Genomic Selection for Durable Rust Resistance
The last session (7) was panel discussion on ‘Delivering Rust Resistant Wheat to Farmers’ chaired by Arun Joshi (CIMMYT, Nepal). Panelists included Peter Njau (KARI, Kenya), Girma Bedada (EIAR, Ethiopia), Mahmood Osmanzai (CIMMYT, Afghanistan) and M. Azab (ARC, Egypt).
The 2010 BGRI technical workshop was closed by pithy and acerbic summarizing presentation of Bob McIntosh (PBI, Uni of Sydney, Australia)
