Australian Indo Strategic Research Fund project on chickpea reviewed at Perth, Australia
Photos: UWA
(Left) Participants of the project meeting. (Right) Drs RK Varshney and PM Gaur at the experimental fields of the project in Western Australia, Perth.
T
he 2nd international bilateral meeting of the project “Genomic approaches for stress tolerant chickpea” was held in Perth on 30 and 31 August to review the progress made and devise work plans for the future. Dr Rajeev Varshney (Project Coordinator, India) and Dr Tim Sutton (Project Coordinator, Australia) gave their respective project overviews and moderated discussions on future work plans. The team members from each institute made presentations on progress made and work plans. The project activities are on track and both coordinators were satisfied with the progress made at each center. They emphasized the need to strengthen Indo-Australian collaboration by enhancing student exchanges and with periodical discussions. This was followed by a field trip to Cunderdin (Western Australia) and glasshouse experiments at The University of Western Australia on 1 September. It was decided that the next international bilateral meeting will be held in India during 2014. Among the others who attented the meeting were Drs Pooran Gaur, Hari Upadhyaya, Abhishek Rathore, Rachit Saxena, Manish Roorkiwal and Deepa Jagannathan (ICRISAT); Ch Bharadwaj (IARI); Mukesh Jain and Sabhyata Bhatia (NIPGR); team members from ACPFG/ University of Adelaide; University of Queensland; The University of Western Australia; RMIT/ University of Melbourne and South Australian Research & Development Institute (SARDI). The project is funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for partners in India and the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, Government of Australia for partners in Australia.
During his visit, Dr Varshney also had the opportunity to explore further opportunities of collaboration with the University of Western Australia. He visited greenhouse and laboratory facilities and had extensive discussions with several scientists. Dr Varshney, who is an Adjunct Professor at UWA, delivered “The Bayliss Seminar” on “Genomes and genomics-assisted breeding in semi-arid tropic legume crops”, jointly organized by the School of Plant Biology and ARC Centre of Plant Energy Biology. In addition, he held discussions with Dr Kadambot Siddique, Hackett Professor of Agriculture, Chair and Director, The UWA Institute of Agriculture; Tim Colmer, Winthorp Professor and Head of School of Plant Biology; and Dr Ian Small, Director, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology for possible collaborations between UWA and ICRISAT. Some of the areas of possible collaboration could be in the development of double haploid technology in grain legumes (especially chickpea), and comprehensive analysis of mitochondrial genomes of pigeonpea for associating genes with cytoplasmic male sterility in pigeonpea. g
Photo: UWA
Dr R Varshney with Dr Tim Colmer (left) and Dr Kadambot Siddique (right) in a greenhouse at UWA. ICRISAT HAPPENINGS 6 SEPTEMBER 2013 1587 5