{"id":4299,"date":"2017-02-20T14:31:29","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T14:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/?p=4299"},"modified":"2017-02-20T14:31:29","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T14:31:29","slug":"nature-india-partners-with-icrisat-for-interdrought-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/2017\/02\/nature-india-partners-with-icrisat-for-interdrought-v.html","title":{"rendered":"Nature India partners with ICRISAT for InterDrought-V"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a>Nature India<\/em> is proud to be\u00a0associated with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) as media partner for the fifth edition of the InterDrought conference being held in Hyderabad\u00a0(February 21-25, 2017).<\/p>\n

The conference brings togther experts from across the world to\u00a0debate key issues in\u00a0improving drought and other stress tolerance in crops. Scientists from around 56 countries will\u00a0come together to explore the possibilities of scientific and technological applications in crop improvement.<\/p>\n

ICRISAT Director General David Bergvinson says the conference will bring together the disciplines of plant and crop physiology, genomics, genetics and breeding. It will talk about recent advances in these fields related to plant responses to water deficit and climate change, phenotyping and genetic variability.<\/p>\n

According to the conference chair Rajeev Varshney this is the\u00a0largest conference in the\u00a0InterDrought series with 850 participants from 56 countries. Earlier conferences in the\u00a0series habe been held in\u00a0France, Italy, China and Australia.<\/p>\n

Nature India<\/em> put together this cover for the abstract book depicting the three important elements of the drought story\u00a0— the starkness of drought, its deep impact on humans and the science-driven solution to meet the challenge — drought-resilient crop varieties.<\/p>\n

Here’s Nature India<\/em>‘s editorial for the conference\u00a0abstract book:<\/p>\n

Looking for a Plan C in water-scarce times<\/h3>\n

An issue that stirs emotions among scientists, policy makers and the general public alike is \u2018water\u2019. Or, in the present times, the lack thereof.<\/p>\n

In these water-scarce times, in India, as in many other parts of the world, the issue of groundwater depletion is a subject of concern and serious study. And so, apart from the parched patches that the world inherited from the 20th century, we are looking at times of new aridity triggered by plummeting groundwater tables. It\u2019s actually a vicious circle \u2013 news studies are now suggesting that excessive pumping of water for agriculture may not be the reason behind the plunging groundwater levels after all. Long-term changes in monsoon rainfall could instead be influencing this, and that in turn is forcing farmers to dig deeper for water.<\/p>\n

Why this preamble on water? Especially when water-scarcity is an issue almost embedded in the DNA of scientists attending InterDrought conferences.<\/p>\n

Essentially because it\u2019s nice to take a step back once a while and look at the larger canvas. For scientists and technologists working on a Plan B to counter drought \u2013 that is, to still be able to grow nutritionally-rich, drought-resistant crops \u2013\u00a0these conferences are a wonderful reminder of the big picture. Interestingly, InterDrought-V is hoping to be the largest such congregation in recent times with over 850 scientists from around 56 countries. This provides a canvas bigger than ever before to create new milestones, fortify strategies that have worked so far, and\u00a0solemnly bury the ones that don\u2019t work so well in the changing climate scenarios.<\/p>\n

The Nature Research Group devotes significant energies to the coverage of the \u201cGrand Challenges\u201d, which include our coverage of climate, water and food \u2013 issues that resonate well with InterDrought-V. Nature India, a showcase of India\u2019s science, is proud to be associated with the conference as its media partner. We hope that the conference, bringing together the who\u2019s who of the discipline from across the world, will identify issues and concerns to evolve a futuristic Plan C for drought-friendly\u00a0agriculture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nature India is proud to be\u00a0associated with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) as media partner for the fifth edition of the InterDrought conference being held in Hyderabad\u00a0(February 21-25, 2017).  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":4307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77,14,18,7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-climate-change","category-environment","category-publishing","category-sciences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/indigenus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}