“Australia-China Wheat Genetics and Breeding Workshop” organized by the State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering (PCCE), Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Western Australia was successfully held at IGDB in Beijing from May 24 to 26, 2010. More than 30 experts from 4 Australian and 12 Chinese institutions attended the workshop. Aim of the workshop is to promote the communication and collaboration of scientists from China and Australia in the region of wheat genetics and breeding.

During workshop, 15 representatives gave oral presentations, introduced the recent progresses in wheat genetics and breeding in two countries. Academician Zhensheng Li from PCCE and Academician Kadambot Siddique from University of Western Australia gave keynote speeches, titled as “The contribution of distant hybridization with decaploid agropyron elongatum to wheat improvement in China” and “The role of production agronomy in wheat yield improvement in Austrialia”. In the panel discussion, the delegations also gave many good suggestions about how to better collaborate each other in future.On the last day of the Workshop, the Australian delegation visited wheat breeding station in Shijiazhuang. The next Workshop will be held in Perth, Australia, in September, 2011.