CIMMYT Board of Trustees made their 2015 meeting in our institute. This meeting, made for the first time in our country, has importance in terms of describing of our institute’s studies and improving our relations.
Chairman of the Board of Trustees Dr. John Snape, Director General of CIMMYT Dr. Martin Kropff, Assistant General Director Marianne Banziger, CIMMYT Wheat Coordinator Dr. Hans Braun and Maize Coordinator Maruthi Prasanna BODDUPALLI and their delegation visited the institute Seed Gene Bank and Biotechnology Research Center on October 14, 2015 to get information about the studies done.
Our institute manager Dr. Mevlüt Şahin said in his speech that the collaboration between our institute and CIMMYT based on 1970s, winter wheat improvement research were started in 1986 between CIMMYT and Turkey, in addition to this project between Turkey and CIMMYT in 1990, International Winter Wheat Improvement Project (IWWIP) was launched by the participation of ICARDA.
Additionally, Dr. Şahin pointed out that after 1995, in the project scope of “The Evaluation of the Rust (Puccinia spp.) Resistance of the International Winter Wheat Improvement Project (IWWIP) (TURKEY-CIMMYT-ICARDA)”, collaboration started and these studies have continued increasingly until today. And he added that still in the scope of IWWIP, collaborative works like plant breeding studies, quality studies, plant diseases (yellow, brown, and black rust) are made and these works provide major contribution for our country and the Central Asian Countries.
The following points were raised in the meeting with the CIMMYT Board of Directors.
1. Thanks to the collaboration between our institute and CIMMYT, trainings about the subject of quality studies can be given by our institute’s staff to the countries in the region, particularly Central Asian Countries,
2. Supporting the participation of NARS’ (National Agricultural Research Systems) young members about the short and medium term training program of CIMMYT
3.Giving priority to young researchers about attending to the organizations like national and international technical meetings, trips, congresses, workshops, and traning programs
4. Training and technical assistance by CIMMYT to the newly opened Biotechnology Research Center within our institute is important in terms of increasing the contribution of the center to our country and the other countries in the IWWIP.
5. At the previous meetings, the preparation of Research Agreement Collaboration Agreement was raised to be able to run cooperative maize research between our country and CIMMYT. It is declared that to start research by making the said agreement will be beneficial.
6. It is declared that the cooperation with CIMMYT and ICARDA has been beneficial for both our countries and the countries in the region, and with the development of this cooperation that benefits would reach higher levels.