The 2019 Advances in Arachis through Genomics and Biotechnology conference was held last week in Jinan, China, where the Peanut Innovation Lab Director, Dave Hoisington, and PIs, Peggy Ozias-Akins, Daniel Fonceka, Josh Clevenger, David Bertioli and Soraya Leal-Bertioli attended and presented some of their work through the Peanut Innovation Lab.
Prior to conference, a short award ceremony and dinner was held to recognize several people for their contribution to the recent peanut genome sequencing success.
Approximately 300 people attended the conference, including several from the United States, Africa, Israel and India.
Many of the presentations involved the use of SNP chips for mapping various biotic, abiotic and seed traits using recombinant inbred lines (RIL), Bulk Segregant Analysis (BSA) and genome-wide association studies (GWAS). There were also presentations on transcriptome analysis and gene isolation. Clearly, peanut genomic research is moving forward rapidly and is already showing great potential for use in breeding.
The conference was the 11thmeeting of AAGB since 2006. With the completion of the peanut genome sequencing, attendees agreed that the meeting should be held every two years, in odd years, and rotate between regions. Tom Stalker of North Carolina State University will solicit volunteers to organize the event, which will be held next in India in 2021.