Session: Special Session Symposium--Unlocking the Biological Potential of Perennial Grain Crops for a Sustainable Agriculture: Advances and Challenges

Title: Special Session Symposium--Unlocking the Biological Potential of Perennial Grain Crops for a Sustainable Agriculture: Advances and Challenges

Session Description: Over the last decades, the promise of perennial crops to maintain or enhance food security while providing ecosystem services and reducing the environmental footprint of agricultural systems has prompted increased efforts in the development of new perennial grain crops. However, progress has been comparatively slow in terms of unlocking the evolutionary and eco-physiological bottlenecks that limit the yield potential and therefore broader adoption of such crops. The symposium will address trade-offs between increasing yield and maintaining perenniality, will highlight lessons learned from long-standing and ongoing efforts, and address key advances as well as bottlenecks associated with the development of perennial grain crops. The symposium is intended to be thought-provoking and the presentations are expected to spark and open discussion that will lead to new ideas. The symposium will consist of three presentations and a discussion at the end. To ensure sufficient time for the discussion, and to allow sufficient time for each speaker to fully develop an in-depth presentation, we limited the number of speakers to three (see below).  Each speaker will be allotted 35 min for the presentation and to address initial audience questions. Following the third speaker, a discussion involving the speakers and audience will be moderated by the organizers.