DAY TWO – May 26, 2026
09:00 – 11:00: Session 4
EXPLORING WHEAT DIVERSITY, EVOLUTION AND GENETIC RESERVOIRS
CHAIRS: Anna Maria Mastrangelo (CREA, Italy), Zhiyong Liu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China)
09:00 – 9:15
Digitalizing the wheat evolution trajectories and genetic diversity
Weilong Guo (China Agricultural University, China)
09:15 – 9:30
Genome-wide discovery of kinase fusion proteins for plant defense
Tzion Fahima (Haifa University, Israel)
09:30 – 09:45
Genetic diversity from wheat’s wild relatives
Julie King (Wheat Research Centre of Nottingham, UK)
09:45 – 10:00
Beyond the cultivated gene pool: Mining hidden genetic riches of wild germplasm
Satinder Kaur (Punjab Agricultural University, India)
10:00 – 10:15
Harnessing the genetic wealth of tetraploid wheat relatives
Elisabetta Mazzucotelli (CREA, Italy)
10:15 – 10:30
Discussion
10:30 – 11:00 SELECTED SHORT TALKS
10:30 – 10:33
Matteo Bozzoli (DISTAL, University of Bologna, Italy)
Genetic diversity characterization of Aegilops tauschii wide sequenced
collection to unlock useful alleles left-behind by domestication and breeding
10:33 – 10:36
Surbhi Grewal (University of Nottingham, United Kingdom)
Comprehensive atlas of wild eelative introgressions reveals conserved
introgression patterns and massive untapped diversity in wheat genebanks
10:36 – 10:39
Matthew Hayden (Agriculture Victoria, Melbourne, Australia)
Mapping global wheat diversity through an Australian lens
10:39 – 10:42
Max Haupt (IPK Gatersleben, Germany)
Genebank genomics provides a comprehensive genome diversity atlas
of wheat
10:42 – 10:45
Kingsley Ikenna Ikpa-Agodo (Tottori University, Tottori, Japan)
Mitochondrial hybridity in in vitro fertilization-generated maizewheat and
pearl milletwheat cybrids drive important stable phenotypic variations
10:45 – 10:48
Yael Lev-Mirom (University of Haifa, Israel)
Ancient grains illuminate the mosaic origin of domesticated wheat
10:48 – 10:51
Lorenzo Pancaldi (DISTAL, University of Bologna, Italy)
Comparative analysis of exome sequencing data reveals convergent selection
of durum and bread wheat
10:51 – 10:54
Salome Lengrand (Earth and Life Institute, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium)
Long-term evolution of root architecture response to soil nitrogen
management in tetraploid wheat (Triticum durum)
10:54 – 10:57
Zihao Wang (China Agricultural University; Institute of Crop Sciences, BeiJing, China)
Digital characterization of chromosome centromeric haplotypes in polyploid
wheat and their potential for breeding
10:57 – 11.00
Meryem Zaim (ICARDA, Rabat, Morocco)
Unlocking genetic diversity for climate-resilient durum wheat improvement
11:00-11:03
Amir Sharon (Tel Aviv University, Israel)
High-resolution genomics enables rapid gene discovery in Aegilops longissima
11:03 – 11:30 COFFEE BREAK & POSTERS VISION
11:30 – 12:30 Panel Discussion I
SOIL AND THE RHIZOSPHERE IN WHEAT PRODUCTION: THE NEW FRONTIER FOR A SUSTAINABILITY
CHAIRS: Laura Ercoli (Sant’Anna School For Advanced Studies, Italy), Lee Hickey (University of Queensland, Australia)
PANELISTS: Francisca Castillo (Neocrop Technologies, Chile)
Maria Hernandez-Soriano (John Innes Centre, UK)
Eric Ober (NIAB, UK)
Alessandra Salvioli (University of Torino, Italy)
12:30 – 14:00 LUNCH
14:00 – 16:00 Session 5
WHEAT GENOMES AND PANGENOMES
CHAIRS: Valentyna Klymiuk (University of Saskatchewan, Canada), Mao Long (Shandong Agricultural University, China)
14:00 – 14:15
Tetraploid wheat pangenome to better bridge with hexaploid wheat
Marco Maccaferri (University of Bologna, Italy)
14:15 – 14:30
Genome variation and breeding application of irradiation in wheat
Luxiang Liu (Institute of Crop Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China)
14:30 – 14:45
Wheat pangenome 100+ and rising: building a global haplotype catalogue
Rajeev Varshney (Murdoch University, Australia)
14:45 – 15:00
The wheat Rchive
David Gilbert (KAUST, Saudi Arabia)
15:00 – 15:15
GWAS across wheat genomes: Insights from the Watkins collection
Adul Kader Allabdullah (John Innes Centre, UK)
15:15 – 15:30
Discussion
15:30 – 16:00 SELECTED SHORT TALKS
15:30 – 15:33
Emile Cavalet-Giorsa (KAUST, Saudi Arabia)
Tracing the origin of non-brittle rachis alleles in wheat
15:33 – 15:36
Susanne Dreisigacker (CIMMYT, Texcoco, Mexico)
Unlocking long-range haplotype diversity in synthetic hexaploid wheat for breeding
15:36 – 15:39
Cristian Forestan (DISTAL, University of Bologna)
From reference transcriptome to pangenome transcriptional diversity:
regulatory networks controlling kernel development in durum wheat
15:39 – 15:42
Kerrie Forrest (Agriculture Victoria, Melbourne, Australia)
An ecosystem of digital tools to solve the FAIR data problem in the pan-genome
era
15:42 – 15:45
Weilong Guo (China Agricultural University, Beijing, China)
Digitalized map of homologous clusters across Poaceae species unveil the
complex evolutional trajectory of genes in triticeae
15:45 – 15:48
Fei He He (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China)
Genomic investigation of wheat genetic improvement: introgression, disease
resistance, and yield
15:48 – 15:51
Pauline Lasserre-Zuber (INRAE, Clermont-Ferrand, France)
The IWGSC RefSeq 3.0 and a bread wheat pangenome providing access to
worldwide diversity
15:51 – 15:56
Kentaro K. Shimizu (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
10+ Wheat Genomes Project highlights that purifying selection on deleterious
variants is shaped by the interactions between subgenomes and gene expression
16:00 – 17:00 COFFEE BREAK & POSTER VISION
17:00 – 19:00 – Session 6
WHEAT FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS
CHAIR: Eduard Akhunov (Kansas State University, USA)
17:00 – 17:15
Genomics of novel disease resistance genes in wheat
Gurcharn Brar Singh (University of Alberta, Canada)
17:15 – 17:30
Genome editing for sustainable wheat production and population health
Lanqin Xia (National Nanfan Research Institute/Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, China)
17:30 – 17:45
Evaluation of the fate of wild-relative introgressions in wheat
Pierre Sourdille (INRAE, France)
17:45 – 18:00
Induced mutations and application in genetic analysis of wheat yield
Huijun Guo (CAAS, China)
18:00 – 18:15
Deciphering the genetic basis of end-use quality in wheat
Yao Yingyin(China Agricultural University, China) (recorded)
18:15 – 18:30
Discussion
18:30 – 19:00 SELECTED SHORT TALKS
18:30 – 18:33
Chiara D’Attilia (University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy)
Revealing the role of IBH1 in brassinosteroid biosynthesis and signalling via
CRISPR-Cas9 knockout in durum wheat
18:33 – 18:36
Benjamin Jaegle (Agroscope, Zurich, Switzerland)
K-mer-based GWAS in a wheat collection reveals novel and diverse sources of
powdery mildew resistance
18:36 – 18:39
Miaomiao Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China)
Cloning of diverse disease resistance genes from wild emmer wheat for
breeding
18:39 – 18:42
Yunchuan Liu (John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom)
Rudimentary basal spikelet formation in wheat: The tug-of-war between
vegetative and differentiation
18:42 – 18:45
Long Mao (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China)
A TaKNOX1-TaAPO1-Rht1 feedback regulation orchestrates grain number and
yield in wheat
18:45 – 18:47
Tori Millsteed (QAAFI, University of Queensland, Australia)
Spatial transcriptomics of developing wheat seed reveals concentric gene
expression zones and subgenome biased expression of key genes
18:47 – 18:50
Shun Sakuma (Tottori University, Japan)
Grain number increase 2 (GNI2) improves floret fertility and enhances grain
yield in wheat
18:50 – 18:53
Becca Testa (John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom)
Green be gone: Transcription factor NAC3 regulates Wwheat senescence
18:53 – 19:00
Discussion