International Horticultural Congress is the largest event in the international horticulture academic circles. Professor Xia Yiping from Institute of Landscape Architecture led a postdoctoral researcher and two Ph.D. students went to Australia to attend the 29th International Horticultural Conference, Brisbane, Australia and gave presentations respectively, 17-22 August 2014.
The theme of the congress was “Sustaining Lives, Livelihoods and Landscapes”, and it had the following sub-themes: Sustaining lives, Sustaining livelihoods,Sustaining landscapes and Tropical horticulture .Meanwhile, it had developed 52 concurrent symposia within each sub-theme such as Ornamental Plants, Plant Breeding in Horticulture, Tropical Fruit and so on. And there would also be a number of workshops held in which topical issues and research topics could be discussed by delegates.
The Conference had various symposia, participants from around the world, and the reports covering all areas of horticulture. At the congress, Professor Xia Yiping’s group had 6 presentations accepted totally, including oral and oral poster presentation, referring “Horticulture, landscape and green building ”, "Plant breeding in garden ”, "The ornamental horticulture crops under global warming”, "5th International Conference on Landscape and Urban Horticulture” and “Ornamental Horticulture In The Global Greenhouse”. The 6 presentations were as follows: "Selection of Low Maintenance Ground Covers For Ecological and Economical Urban Landscape in Hangzhou, China” (Professor: Xia Yiping), “Effects of gibberellic acid and 5-azacytidine on floral bud development of potazaleaproduction in China ” (Dr: Zhou hong), “Influence of Natural High Temperature Stress on Morphology and ChlorophyⅡ Fluorescence Characteristics in Four Ornamental Cultivars of Paeonia lactiflora” (Ph.D.student: Zhang Jiaping), “Germplasm Resources and Classification of Chinese Herbaceous Peony and Breeding of Hot-wetresistant Cultivars” (Ph.D.student: Zhang Jiaping), “Cross Compatibility Study Among Different Hybrids And Introgression Breeding Of Lilium spp” (Ph.D. student: Zhang Lin ), “Comparative Analysis OF Wetland Ecological Parks In Yangtse River Delta Area Of China” (Ph.D. student: Zhang Lin). All reports obtained delegates’ affirmation and praise, and further exchanges were made in the Q&A part. The conference was also a good opportunity for doctoral students, who accumulated experience of giving presentations, asking questions and exchanging ideas in an international academic environment.
Professor Xia Yiping has been focusing on bulb and perennial flowers over the years. At the congress, he communicated with several experts in related fields. Particularly, he made a close communication with Professor Rina Kamenetsky, president of International Horticultural Society for Flower Bulbs and Herbaceous Perennials and discussed about future research focus and directions for bulb and perennial flowers.
Besides, under the organizers’ arrangement, Professor Xia Yiping’s group visited the Roman Street Park in Brisbane which is known as the world’s largest urban subtropical garden with some other participants, surveying the numerous colorful subtropical, tropical and Australian native plants.
