International congresses

The RFI Objectif Végétal programme has supported the organisation of several international symposia held in the Pays de la Loire region.

ISHS GREENSYS 2019 international symposium on advanced technologies and management for innovative greenhouses - June 16 - 20 2019

This congress is organized every 2 years and took place for the first time in France at the Angers Congress Centre. The 2017 edition took place in Beijing. The organizing committee was composed of Agrocampus Ouest, CTIFL, INRAE and Destination Angers.

The congress was a great success with a higher participation than all previous editions: 410 scientists on June 17 and 18, plus 200 professionals on Wednesday June 19. Nearly 200 people also took part in the technical tours on Thursday June 20 organised in Angers and Nantes regions.

The symposium will result in proceedings published in Acta Horticulturae.

Contact : Pierre-Emmanuel BOURNET (Agrocampus Ouest - EPHor)

Greensys 2019 - Angers congress centre

Greensys 2019 - poster session - Angers congress centre

Symposium EPI /GENETICS from basic research to plant breeding   October 29-31 2018

This international symposium was organized by Etienne Bucher, then INRAE Research Director and head of the EpiCenter team within the UMR IRHS, at the School of Law, Economics and Business Studies of Angers with the support of the ERC (European Research Council) and the RFI Objectif Végétal regional programme.

The international reputation of the research carried out in Angers in this field has brought together 130 experts, students and breeders from all over the world (America, Asia, Africa, Oceania and Europe) to exchange on the latest advances in the fields of fundamental and applied research on cultivated plants on :

• Epigenetics (including the study of heritability mechanisms independent of DNA sequence);
• Transposable elements;
• Plant breeding in the context of the dynamic genome;
• The challenges of plant breeding in the context of global warming.

Speakers included Isabel Bäurle (University of Potsdam, Germany), Claude Becker (Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austria), Tetsuji Kakutani (National Institute of Genetics, Japan), Marie Mirouze (DIADE, IRD, Perpignan, France), Olivier Panaud (Laboratoire Génome et Développement des Plantes, Université de Perpignan, France), Bob Schmitz (University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA), Nathan Springer (University of Minnesota, USA), Clémentine Vitte (Laboratoire Génétique Quantitative et Évolution - Le Moulon, France), Jian-Kang Zhu (Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, China & Purdue University, USA), and Michael Thieme (Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of Zürich, Switzerland) and former student of Etienne Bucher who presented some results of the ERC BUNGEE project.

The highlights:

• epigenetic mechanisms: which molecules and their role in activating or repressing gene expression;
• interactions between the epigenome and the environment: pathogens, stress, global warming...
• epigenetics and transposable elements: the mechanisms of activation of transposons;
• interactions between transposons and hosts: what effects on the plant genome, the 3D structure of the genome...
• transposons and their effects on the structure of the genome and how they regulate gene expression ;
• applications: how to use transposons and epigenetics to improve plants;
• bioinformatics, used for transposon analysis and epigenetics.

Jian-Kang Zhu (Shanghai Center for Plant Stress Biology, China & Purdue University, USA) - Epigenetics international symposium - Angers - oct 2018

Epigenetics symposium - Angers - oct 2018 - Credit : N MANSION Inrae

7th International Symposium on Rose Research and Cultivation. July  2 - 7 2017

This symposium, organized at Agrocampus-Ouest by the UMR IRHS, was held under the aegis of the International Society of Horticultural Sciences. It brought together 124 participants, rose breeders, producers and conservators, 37 French and 87 foreigners from 20 countries, notably from Europe, the United States, but also from South America, and a large Asian delegation, with Chinese and Japanese participants.

The symposium was held in Angers, because Anjou is internationally recognized in this sector :

• 1st pole of production of garden roses in France;
• 1st European rose research centre (with notably Inrae, the University of Angers and Agrocampus Ouest);
• Anjou hosts numerous rose collections.

The symposium covered all areas of rose research with the latest developments in various fields: agronomy, physiology, genetics, genomics...
It was organised around 7 scientific sessions and a round table, with 36 oral presentations and 70 posters presented.

Compared to the previous ISHS rose symposium, held in Hanover in 2012, the rose entered the era of genomics with numerous presentations on sequencing projects and genomic approaches. Two IRHS teams participated in the sequencing of the internationally used rose model : 'Old Blush'.
In addition, many presentations focused on multidisciplinary approaches: genetics and robotics for the development of high throughput phenotyping and neuro-marketing approaches to study consumer preferences. The work of the Angevin teams on the study of the diversity and genetic determinism of ornamental traits (IRHS-team GDO) and on the development of plant architecture by environmental factors with a particular focus on light (IRHS-team Arch-E) was promoted within the international community through oral communications, poster presentations and numerous informal discussions. Adrien Corot, RFI doctoral student of the Arch-E team, received the award for best poster by the organizing committee.
The organization of a round table discussion allowed new research questions to emerge, in particular on root architecture due to the importance of abiotic stress and the increase of rose production on their own roots, as well as the development of roses that are easy to grow for urban uses.
The participants discovered the first French rose production basin by visiting different nurseries and rose gardens near Doué la Fontaine.

These papers were published in an issue of’Acta Horticulturae.
The next symposium will be held in the United States in 2021.

Contact : Fabrice FOUCHER (Inrae- IRHS)

7th International Symposium on Rose Research and Cultivation - Angers 2017

5th International Conference of the Association Francophone pour l'Enseignement et la Recherche en Pharmacognosie (French-speaking Association for Teaching and Research in Pharmacognosy) (AFERP). July 17 - 19 2017

This conference held at School of Law, Economics and Business Studies of Angers and organised by the laboratory SONAS brought together 150 participants around a scientific program focused on the development of natural products from :

• native (K. Awang, Malaysia; S. Khalid, Sudan; LM Peña Rodriguez, Mexico) or microbial (S. Tomasi, France) flowers;
• co-products of the agro-food industry (L. Skaltsounis, Greece);
• enzyme engineering (T. Brück, Germany);
• and accompanied by the description of new methodological developments in the field of synergistic studies (S. Zacchino, Argentina), convergent approaches (C. Vonthron-Senecheau, France), molecular modelling (D. Schuster, Austria) or new chromatographic techniques (H. Stuppner, Austria).

The scientific programme thus included 12 invited lectures given by specialists from Europe (France, Greece, Italy, Germany), Africa (Sudan), Asia (Malaysia) and Central and South America (Argentina and Mexico), 9 oral communications, 12 flash posters and about 50 posters. A partnership between the AFERP and the association Lapervenchelif (Laboratoires Pierre Fabre) made it possible to award 16 grants to young researchers to help them attend this event.

3 prizes were awarded at the end of the various presentations:

• Oral communication: Charlotte ALCOVER (Paris Sud)
• Flash poster: Alice GADEA (Rennes)
• Poster: Antoine BRUGUIÈRES (Angers)

Contact : Pascal RICHOMME (Université d'Angers - SONAS)

5th International Conference of the Association Francophone pour l'Enseignement et la Recherche en Pharmacognosie - Angers 2017

11th International Symposium of the French Society of Plant Biology (SFBV). July 6 - 8 2016

Organized in Angers by the UMR IRHS (J Lothier), the symposium brought together 115 participants with the aim of promoting the dissemination and development of knowledge in plant biology, sustaining or establishing new scientific partnerships, and fostering exchanges between the various specialists in this field.

8ème Rosaceae Genomic Conference (RGC8). June 21 - 23 2016

The 8th edition of the international conference on the genomics of Rosaceae was organised in Angers by the UMR IRHS (F Laurens). It enabled researchers and breeders from all over the world working on fruit and ornamental Rosaceae to discuss the state-of-the-art in genomics and genetic research on these species, and to target their research to provide solutions that meet the needs of producers and consumers. 180 people participated.