Prof. Junjie Gao, Vice President of Tai’an Academy of Agricultural Sciences (TAAS), accompanied by Dr. Zhe Sun and Prof. Guiling Liu visited our center on March 28 and 29, 2017. Prof. Peng Zhang and the key members of sweet potato research team including Drs. Jun Yang, Hongxia Wang and Weijuan Fan, met the visitors and made bilateral exchanges on how to promote new variety breeding and application.

TAAS and our center have established long-term cooperation in sweet potato molecular breeding and released a series of accredited “Taizhong” cultivars, including Taizhong 6, Taizhong 9 and Taizhong 11. These farmer-preferred cultivars have been planted in a large area in Huanghuai region, which makes outstanding contributions to sweet potato breeding community. As addressed by Prof. Gao, a decade of collaboration and partnership will tighten and deepen the links on germplasm evaluation and utilization to promoter technology transfer. Both sides discussed research content and made assignments for 2017. After discussion, the visitors also paid a visit to Fenglin campus and the phytotron.

The visit strengthens bilateral collaboration and deepens the content of joint projects, which can promote the commercialization of sweet potato new cultivars and technologies.