Drought is the major constraint in food production world-wide. A first INTERDROUGHT meeting held a decade ago brought together a range of expertise to identify the genetic mechanisms underlying drought sensitiity and tolerance, explore practical avenues for improving crop performance in drought-prone environments, and to address issues related to the socio-economic environment interfacing with such practices. Considering the particularly steep increase in knowledge at the molecular level over the last decade, an International conference focussing on all aspects of drought is overdue. INTERDROUGHT II has now been organized to foster interdisciplinary work and harness the understanding coming from plant genomics work for a more holistic view on how to integrate such knowledge in existing breeding programs. Great advances have been made in recent years in understanding the molecular basis of plant response and tolerance to drought stress. Scores of drought-responsive genes have been identified and the function of some has been resolved. The availability of whole genome sequences for Arabidopsis and rice, and increasingly more information about the genomes of other plant species, together with massive sequencing of drought-induced genes and the analysis of the expression profile of entire genomes has provided further opportunities to identify candidate genes whose manipulation either through engineering and/or marker-assisted selection will likely be instrumental for hastening future improvements in drought tolerance. The objectives of INTERDROUGHT-II are (1) to serve as a platform for presenting and debating key issues and strategies relevant for increasing the yield and stability of crops under drought conditions by genetic and management approaches; (2) to assess ways to fill the knowledge gap between the molecular level and the field level; (3) devise strategies to more effectivley deploy scientific knowledge to release more water-use efficient and drought-resilient cultivars and to more efficiently manage water resources.
Intellectual Merit and Impact. There is now an increasing demand in both public and private sectors for interchange between disciplines involved with molecular science and those involved with crop management in the field. INTERDROUGHT-II offers a unique and timely platform for this exchange. Although the major emphasis of INTERDROUGHT-II lies in the scientific forefront of molecular genetics, plant breeding and management practices, socio-economic issues have been addressed in the program. INTERDROUGHT-II will be especially concerned with the poorer, less-developed countries that confront an escalating problem of increasing food production with less water and on marginal, drought-prone land. The conference will strive to address such problems with appropriate participation of experts and students from developing countries. We expect >400 people from all continents to attend, many of them young and upcoming scientists, and stakeholders (e.g., NGOs, NARI, CGIAR, etc.) will be present, providing a platform for enhanced outreach. The support from NSF will be used to partially cover travel costs and/or accomodations for young US scientists, advertized through plant/crop science society webpages. Special emphasis will be placed on supporting young reseachers interested in and working on drought-related topics at Colleges that transmit research results to farming and indigenous communities. Drought is a planet-wide problem, solutions are global, research networking is essential - it is equally essential to provide, as our funding allocation will do, minorities the opportunity to attend ID-II.
