HORTIMODEL 2016

Aims

Fruits and vegetables are a main source of health compounds and a hedonic constituent of human diet. In the context of global change, plants will be facing increasing abiotic and biotic constraints. Therefore, innovations are expected in order to improve plant adaptation these constraints as well as to reduce water, nutrients and chemical inputs. Plant breeding, innovative cultural practices and climate control are all effective levers that can be combined in order to improve crop yield and quality in low input production systems. In this context, a renewed modeling effort is needed in order to provide an integrated understanding of horticultural system functioning. Model goals for the future are to describe the cross-talk between physiological processes at multiple plant scales, simulate complex greenhouses designs, anticipating the consequences of environmental fluctuations or pest attack for system control and management.

Hortimodel2016 will bring together modelers from different fields, promoting exchanges between fundamental and applied plant research, around the following four topics:

     - Topic 1: Decision-support modelling tools

       Keynote speaker: Dr Juan Ignacio Montero (IRTA, Spain)

     - Topic 2: Modeling plant and organ responses to biotic and abiotic constraints

        Keynote speaker: Prof Leo Marcelis (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)

     - Topic 3: Methodological issues for plant systems modeling

        Keynote speaker: Prof. Paul-Henry Cournède (CentraleSupélec, France)

     - Topic 4: Multi-scale, integrative approaches

        Keynote speaker: Dr. Karine Chenu (University of Queensland, Australia)

More information on topics description can be found here.

Important dates

- The Abstract Submission Deadline is 15 March 2016.

- Early registrations are open until April 15, 2015.