The 2011 ASHS Annual Conference

Objective(s):
We intend this colloquium to provide an open forum for horticultural science community to overview the current state of emerging principles and techniques in environmental stress physiology and to apply the knowledge and novel tools to their own research, education, and extension activities. The specific aims of this colloquium are: 1. Introduce novel and emerging methods for early detection and assessment of plant stress 2. Introduce novel and emerging methods to prevent and/or mitigate plant stress 3. Discuss applications of these methods in horticulture 4. Engage research, teaching, and extension communities in applications of these methods

Crops face numerous abiotic and biotic stresses throughout their lifetime. These environmental pressures are intensifying due to global warming, extreme weather events, drought, salinity, and invasive pest and pathogens. Meanwhile, the need for improving crop productivity and quality with enhanced resource use efficiencies (e.g., water) has increased immensely to meet the demand to provide food, energy, and other goods and services for a rapidly increasing global population in a changing climate.

In addition to genetically improving crops, critical advances have been made in developing methods to evaluate, monitor, and mitigate plant environmental stresses. These physiological and ecological methods complement genetic approaches in our effort to improve stress tolerances in crops.

In this colloquium, we will bring together experts in these emerging, novel methods to evaluate and mitigate plant stress with an emphasis on horticultural, physiological, and ecological techniques. The colloquium will have two main threads: 1) stress evaluation methods and 2) stress mitigation methods. We intend this colloquium to provide an open forum for the horticultural science community to overview the current state of these emerging techniques and to enable the audience to apply these new tools to their own research, education, and extension activities. The specific aims of this colloquium are listed below.

1. Introduce novel and emerging methods for early detection and assessment of plant stress.
2. Introduce novel and emerging methods to prevent and/or mitigate plant stress.
3. Discuss applications of these methods in horticulture.
4. Engage research, teaching, and extension communities in applications of these methods.

This colloquium is sponsored by Environmental Stress Physiology Working Group and supported by the following corporate sponsors: Acadian Agritech,  TKI/NovaSource, LI-COR Biosciences, Valent BioScience and Precision Laboratories.