OCRI-CAAS Hosted International Workshop on Groundnut Diseases Management

　　An International Workshop on Groundnut Bacterial Wilt Working Group and Cooperative Projects Reviewing was held during October 18-20, 2019 in Wuhan, China, hosted by the Oil Crops Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (OCRI-CAAS) jointly with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Dr Yinbo Zhang, director assistant of OCRI-CAAS, Dr Rajeev Varshney, head of genome team of ICRISAT and Prof Boshou Liao, technical coordinator of the Groundnut Bacterial Wilt Working Group (GBWWG) addressed in the opening ceremony. Around 40 participants from Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Senegal, Vietnam, ICRISAT and several Chinese institutes attended the workshop.

　　The GBWWG was initiated by ICRISAT and Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in 1990 for promoting control of groundnut bacterial wilt disease in Asian countries. Since 1997, Prof Boshou Liao from OCRI-CAAS has been the technical coordinator of GBWWG as requested by ICRISAT. For a long period, GBWWG has coordinated research and technology extension for integrated management of bacterial wilt. Since 2012, the Chinese government has increased its donation to ICRISAT and special support has been given to support GBWWG. In recent years, the focus of GBWWG has extended to the key soil-borne diseases including stem rot, pot rot and Aspergillus infection in addition to bacterial wilt. Since 2014, OCRI-CAAS has also obtained two NSFC-CGIAR joint grants for resistance enhancement against bacterial wilt and aflatoxin contamination through cooperation with ICRISAT.

　　In the workshop, current status of groundnut soil-borne diseases management in each GBWWG-participating country was reported. Progress on elite groundnut germplasm discovery, screening techniques, molecular markers and integrated control options were presented. In particular, special groundnut germplasm lines with shell resistance to Aspergillus infection have been identified for the first case. Several germplasm lines moderately resistant to stem rot have also been identified. Several breeding lines have been identified with combined resistances to bacterial wilt, pod rot, aflatoxin production and scab. Diagnostic markers have been identified for resistance to bacterial wilt and aflatoxin contamination through cooperation among the partners. The participants highly appreciated the above research progress and suggested to promote further dissection of the resistance mechanisms and breeding utilization through extensive collaboration.