The 7^th China-Japan-Korea International Sweetpotato Workshop was successfully held in Jinan, Shandong from Oct. 11-14, 2016. The workshop was jointly organized by Trilateral Research Association of Sweetpotato (TRAS), Sweetpotato Committee of Chinese Society of Crop Sciences, Chinese Sweetpotato Research and Development Center, and Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences (SAAS). The workshop theme is “Ecological security and sustainable development of sweetpotato”. Over 200 representatives joined the event from international and domestic organizations including the CIP-China Center for Asia and the Pacific. Professor Peng Zhang, together with Dr. Jun Yang, Dr. Hongxia Wang, Dr. Weijuan Fan, Yinliang Wu, and Nan Yang, attended the workshop and presented a session talk with title of “Storage root development: the gambling between primary and secondary metabolism in sweetpotato”.

The TRAS, a short name of “Trilateral Research Association of Sweetpotato”, was established at the 5^th Korea-China-Japan Sweetpotato Workshop which was held at Jeju, Korea on September 18, 2012. The trilateral sweetpotato workshop has emerged as the most important biennial academic meeting on sweetpotato studies since its launch in 2004. The general purpose of the TRAS is to promote collaboration in research and development among scientists from academia and industry in the three countries for the general advancement of the use of the sweetpotato in terms of food, energy, environment and health security. The workshop focused on several aspects of sweetpotato biotechnology, resources and breeding, cultivation and farming, diseases and pests control, processing and utilization. Participants discussed current industry situation and present research advances of sweetpotato in China, Japan and Korea. The workshop significantly promotes research and information sharing in the region. After the workshop, the delegates were invited to visit the facility of sweetpotato breeding in SAAS and collaborated sweetpotato processing company in Sishui.