TRADITOM at the SOLCUC2017 meeting

The SOLCUC2017 meeting took place in Valencia, Spain from September 3-6, 2017 and gathered 440 researchers working in Solanaceae and Cucurbitaceae Genomics for the first time after the Kobe meeting in 2012. Researchers from more than 40 different countries presented the latest advances in genomic research for these two important plant families.

In addition to being the local organizers, TRADITOM partners were chairs of a large number of scientific sessions (see programme here), presented their work as invited speakers, in oral presentations and a number of poster presentations.  Worth to mention is a specific session on traditional varieties which was chaired by two TRADITOM scientists: Andrea Mazzucato and Joan Casals – in this very popular meeting, results from TRADITOM attracted a lot of attention.

TRADITOM members in the Local Organizing Committee were Antonio Granell (CSIC), Jaime Prohens (UPV), Antonio Monforte (CSIC) and Diego Orzaez (CSIC).

TRADITOM members as chairs of sessions and members of the International Scientific Committee:

Session I BIODIVERSITY: GENOMES GALORE and CROP DIVERSITY I – Chair: Maria Jose Diez, UPV

Session II BIODIVERSITY: GENOMES GALORE AND CROP DIVERSITY II – Chair: Giovanni Giuliano, ENEA

Session III GENETICAL GENOMICS/ MOLECULAR BREEDING – Chair: Mathilde Causse, INRA-Avignon; co-chair Antonio Monforte, CSIC)

Session XIII SOLCUC BIOTECH – Chair: Diego Orzaez, CSIC

Parallel Session X ROUND TABLE SOLCUC Genomics Research: The companies’ view – chair: Jaime Prohens, UPV

Parallel Session VIII TRADITIONAL VARIETIES – Chair: Andrea Mazzucato, Unitus-ENEA, co-chair Joan Casals, FMA-UPV

From those scientific presentations, we highlight two which are directly related to TRADITOM:

"The TRADITOM project: Digging in the variability pool of traditional European tomato" by  Andrea Mazzucato (Unitus-ENEA) and "Variability in Fruit ripening within the European traditional pool of tomato varieties"  by Clara  Pons Puig (CSIC).

As a complement to the scientific program, a subset of TRADITOM varieties called GOURMETOM were exhibited at the Rural Caja facilities in Paiporta (near Valencia) where SOLCUC207 participants had the opportunity to visit and see the plants in situ and learn about TRADITOM in real field conditions from TRADITOM partners.