China - Bilateral collaboration in the field of comparative genomics of stress tolerance in grasses

Rice and wheat are the two main crops in China, and China has an extensive genome research activity of high international standard in these species exemplified by one of the Chinese institutions involved in this project, namely the Chinese Academy of Agri cultural Sciences (CAAS) (www.caas.net.cn/caas/). This institution has active research on drought tolerance of wheat, and is also responsible for a national gene bank with a large number of accessions. The other partner, China Agricultural University (CA U) (www.cau.cn) ranks as the best agricultural university in China. CAU has quite extensive research in applied grassland sciences, and want to increase their activity in biotechnology of forage grasses. The project leader at the Norwegian University of L ife Sciences (UMB) has for a number of years worked within the field of comparative genomics of forage grasses with a focus on frost and drought tolerance. The project team will therefore complement each other and will be able to develop joint projects wh ich will benefit both countries. The planned collaborative research projects will involve the exchange of plant materials with contrasting stress tolerances (drought and frost), exchange of knowledge and technologies for genomic characterization of the plant materials (genetic markers, candidate genes, expression analyses, phenotypic screening etc), field testing of a common set of varieties/lines, screening of potentially valuable gene bank accessions, and mutual exchange of PhD students an Post Docs f or training purposes. Purchases of R&D services, e.g. large-scale genotyping, between the partners will also be included in the proposal depending on know-how, access to technologies and running costs of the different partners.