Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
410 MRAK HALL
DAVIS,CA 95616-8671
Performing Department
Plant Sciences
Non Technical Summary
The National Association of Plant Breeders exists to foster interaction among plant breeders across all crops and all sectors and to promote plant breeding. The NAPB has an annual conference during the summer; the meeting proposed here will be the seventh meeting of NAPBOur goal with this conference is twofold. First, we aim to develop a scientific program that presents an up-to-date view on breeding methodologies, including the latest information on applying modern remote and proximal sensing equipment to phenotyping needs in a diverse array of crops, how high-throughput genotyping and big data are transforming selection programs of major and minor crops, and how breeding for niches like organic systems is giving public breeders opportunities to develop and maintain functioning field-based breeding projects.Second, continuing one of the main themes of the NAPB, we aim to attract graduate students and postdocs and provide them with numerous opportunities to network with faculty and industry breeders. We will have a session on job opportunities to provide dialogue between job seekers and job providers. The NAPB is focused on ensuring the US has highly trained young breeders entering the job market. This conference will provide opportunities for industry and academia to discuss the needs on each side and to help students prepare for careers after school is over.In both cases, we are focusing this year on the diversity of crops plant breeders are working with, and with the diverse challenges breeders of all crops face. An important issue moving forward is how minor or specialty crops or small companies can take advantage of new advances in technologies or methodologies. Our sessions will explore success stories and challenges in this regard.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) is the only national scientific group that encompasses all plant breeding activities across seed and asexually propagated crops, involves horticulture, agronomy, and forestry, and has active participation of the academic, government, and private plant breeding sectors. The 2017 NAPB meeting will be held in Davis, CA on 7-10 August. The goal of this project is to enhance student involvement in the conference.
Project Methods
We will make broadly distributed announcements using the NAPB electronic newsletter, a newly launched website (plantbreeding.org), the Education Committee's web-based seminar series sponsored through eXtension.org (http://www.extension.org/plant_breeding_genomics), SeedWorld, LINKEDIN and other social networking sites, and commodity group lists.We intend to finalize invitation lists for speakers during fall 2016. Our meeting theme revolves around the diversity of challenges facing the many crops NAPB members are breeding. Therefore, we will be identifying speakers and participants who cover the breadth of needs in the community and moreover, who have demonstrated an ability to transfer technologies across crops or leverage information in one species for the benefit of another.Speakers and session moderators will be selected to balance gender, career stage, institutional size, and geographic region. Each topical session (outside the two grad student short talk sessions) will include a presentation by at least one graduate student/postdoc selected based on the research topic fit within the program. We will provide awards for outstanding oral and poster presentations by graduate students or postdocs. Additional efforts will be made to recruit participation by underrepresented groups.In collaboration with NAPB Leadership and the Graduate Student Working Group, the NAPB Education Committee solicits student abstracts, selects student speakers, organizes short presentations, and convenes and judges the poster competition. We anticipate that the conference will consist of two days of oral and poster presentations bookended by optional tours. Across the two main days of the conference, we will have eight sessions, each occupying a two hour block. Speakers will include awardees from the 2015 and 2016 meetings.In developing our program, we are attempting to balance speaking slots ensure equal representation of women, and providing opportunities for underrepresented minorities and early career scientists to present their work. Meetings such as this provide excellent opportunities for students and early career scientists to mix with established faculty and a broad array of industry breeders. The format will highlight the opportunities in plant breeding fields for students.