The Delegation of CRI Attending the 12th International Citrus Congress

From Nov.14th to 23rd,2012, the 12th International Citrus Congress (ICC 2012) was held in Valencia, Spain. Academician DENG Xiuxin and Prof. ZHOU Changyong attended the executive board meeting. The meeting decided that the 13th ICC in 2016 will be held in Iguacu, Brazil, and the 14th ICC will be in Turkey.

Over 1150 people from citrus producers of the world attended the ICC 2012. The number of delegates from the China hit a record high of 86. Twenty two of them were from CRI, 15 from Huazhong Agricultural University and 11 from Hunan Agricultural University. They present their latest research progress to the congress. Chinese scientists have made the great contributions to the development of China citrus industry, which now is the world largest citrus industry. The theme of this congress is “Citrus and Health”.  The conference consisted of 22 panels addressing all the aspects of citrus research. Various forms of programs were organized, including plenary and ordinary oral sessions, workshops and poster presentations, which shared cutting-edge information and established collaborations among the participants.

Opening ceremony of ICC

ICC is one of the most important international scientific conferences for CRI. It provided us a great opportunity to catch the latest research progress and share our findings with the citrus researchers worldwide. It is also a major channel for establishing links among the scientists and international cooperation. Our delegates provided abstracts and presented the posters to the congress. Four scientists gave the oral presentations.

Researchers are having discussion

The delegates of CRI also attended the technical tours arranged by the committee. They visited the Citrus Germplasm Bank, Virus-free Citrus Nursery Stock Breeding Base, Standardized Production Orchard, Citrus Fruit Postharvest Handling Packing Plant, Citrus Fruit Juice Processing Plant and Valencia Agricultural Institute. The tours provided us a wide view of citrus industry in Spain, from the scientific research to production and processing.

Visiting the virus-free citrus nursery stock breeding base in Spain

Visiting the citrus fruit postharvest handling packing plant in Spain

The International Citrus Congress is held once every four years, and offers a great platform for the scientific researchers from all over the world to share and discus their work. This will certainly promote the citrus research, in order to maintain the sustainability of citrus industry in the future.

The delegation of CRI and other domestic institutions

( Huang Sen contributed to this report )