São Paulo – The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) is sending nine researchers to the World Soybean Research Conference, due this week, from Monday (10th) to Saturday (15th) in Beijing, China. The researchers are from the Embrapa Soy unit, located in the city of Londrina, state of Paraná, and operate in genetic improvement, biotechnology, weeds and entomology.
The meeting takes place every five years and brings together scientists from the leading countries in production and exports of the commodity, and also from the main consumer markets. It is a large forum for exchanging experiences in the area with soy specialists from around the world. It is the most important event on soy research. The last edition took place in Chicago, in the United States, and Brazil was represented by 35 researchers, of which 24 were from Embrapa.
The Embrapa scientists should have a proactive participation in this year’s conference. Researcher Carlos Alberto Arrabal Arias is going to give a lecture on cyst nematode resistance. He is going to look into technologies that have been developed for fighting the problem. Mercedes Concórdia Carrão Panizzi will organise a technical session on processing and value adding for special strains of soy, and will also be a speaker at the plenary session on safe farming.
Researcher Mariangela Hungria is going to talk about biological nitrogen fixation, Ricardo Vilela Abdelnoor, the coordinator of the National Consortium for Soy Genome Studies, is going to present the results of surveys in the area, Francismar Corrêa Marcelino is going to give a lecture on soy tolerance to drought and another on quantitative methodologies for insertion of transgenes in soy. Other speakers include José Francisco Ferraz de Toledo, Marcelo Fernandes de Oliveira, Clara Beatriz Hoffmann Campo and Fernando Storniolo Adegas.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
