Singapore, April 24, 2008: Scientists from Crop and Food Research Lincoln, New Zealand are cooperating with research organizations in Christchurch’s Friendship city of Wuhan, China, to develop potatoes with superior qualities including resistance to cold-induced sweetening.
Crop and Food Research has strengthened its ties with Huazhong Agricultural University in China since Christchurch signed the Friendship City Agreement two years ago. Since then there had been a number of scientific exchanges between the two organizations.
Prof Tony Conner, a senior scientist at Crop and Food Research, Lincoln said, “We had a lot of interaction which included giving lectures to students, looking in depth at the potato programme they are carrying out and editing their scientific papers.”
Mr Bob Parker, mayor, Christchurch said, “The Crop and Food Research relationship is one of 22 officially recognized partnerships that Canterbury businesses and educational organizations have in Wuhan. With the signing of the historic free trade agreement in China the level of cooperation on scientific projects will only increase.”
New Zealand and China are part of the International Potato Genome Sequencing Consortium. China is mapping the gene sequence of two of the 12 chromosomes and Crop and Food Research is mapping one. The other countries involved include Netherlands, Britain, Ireland, Australia, Denmark, Turkey and Poland. The scientists are working at breeding potato cultivars with disease resistance and desirable processing traits.
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