The 4th International Symposium on Broomrape in Sunflower organized by Institutul Naţional de Cercetare-Dezvoltare Agricolă Fundulea (INCDA), International Sunflower Association (ISA) and Universitatea De Ştiinţe Agronomice Şi Medicină Veterinară Din Bucureşti, was held in Bucharest, Romania, during July 1 to 4, 2018. Professor Weijun Zhou from the Institute of Crop Science (ICS), Zhejiang University together with his Postdocs and PhD scholar attended this grand conference. Professor Weijun Zhou was invited to give an oral presentation on “Seed pretreatment with brassinolide induces the antioxidant defense system of Helianthus annuus against sunflower broomrape infection”. Postdocs Dr. Jian Wang and Dr. Faisal Islam gave oral presentations entitled “Parasitic weed Orobanche cumana infestation especially on confectionary sunflower in the northwest regions of China”, “Emerging parasitic weed broomrape issues in China and its possible management solutions”, respectively. PhD candidate Luyang Hu, co-supervised with Professor Stéphane Muños from INRA/Université de Toulouse (France), was also invited to give a talk entitled “Genetic diversity of sunflower broomrape populations in China revealed by genome re-sequencing”. During the conference, Professor Weijun Zhou and Professor Maria Joita-Pacureanu fromINCDA (Romania), Professor Stéphane Muños, Professor Philippe Delavault from Université de Nantes (France), and professors from Inner Mongolia Academy of Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Sciences, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University and other Chinese experts from National Sunflower Industrial Technology System had a fruitful communication for the successful collaboration and further teamwork. Professor Weijun Zhou research group as a principal member joined International Consortium on Sunflower Broomrape Resistance. Before and after the conference, Professor Zhou research group also visited the local enterprises and farms in Brăila and Tari Verde (Constanţa), observing breeding, cultivation management and mechanized harvesting of sunflower and rapeseed varieties. The 5th International Symposium on Broomrape in Sunflower will be held in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China in 2022.
