Plant-Environment Interactions in Field Systems

Horticultural crops in open field systems have to face and adapt to ongoing environmental changes and to new emerging cultivation systems. This context generates strong challenges but also opportunities to address fundamental questions and promote innovation in plant material, new knowledge and practices, thus opening new applications and educational perspectives. The Division Plant-Environment Interactions in Field Systems (DPHY) gathers numerous Working Groups whose members are involved in the comprehension of the physiological and molecular control of plant development and adaptation to agronomic and environmental conditions. The symposia organized by these Working Groups address fundamental questions related to fruit tree reproductive biology, including key steps of the elaboration for fruit tree production, from floral induction, flower development, flowering phenology, pollination success and compatibility between cultivars to fruit set and dependencies between consecutive years of production that may lead to irregular cropping over years. Because the competition for scarce water resources is intense in many places worldwide, and available freshwater resources are constantly diminishing, drought issues are addressed and members of the Working Groups are encouraged to find solutions, including the use of new technologies, to mitigate its adverse effects. Agronomic and practical issues related to fruit crop nutrition and fertilization, water relations in a context of water scarcity, emergence of saline water, re-use of polluted waste water are debated. Other aspects of tree and orchard management, such as tree training, rootstock breeding and evaluation, and use of bioregulators, but also agro-ecology, ecosystem services of orchards and agro-forestry, which have potential to increase biodiversity in orchards and to reduce phytosanitary pressure while maintaining regular and high cropping, with high fruit quality, also require debates. Exploring interactions between plant and environment but also plant x plant, plant x pathogens and micro-organisms, roots x soil is key for generating new knowledge on horticultural crop responses and adaptation capacity. Regarding the complexity of the morphological, physiological and molecular processes involved in those interactions, new technologies and modelling approaches are promoted to represent and decipher the underlying mechanisms from the cellular, organ, tree scales to the orchard scale.
We expect from these international symposia, high quality scientific exchanges and discussions on the latest results on physiological, molecular and genetic controls, on the different aspects of yield elaboration examining agronomic and genetic levers to understand and adapt horticultural crops to changing environmental conditions. We also expect stimulating debates among disciplines, points of views, and between young and senior attendees. Our symposia increase and facilitate the transfer of knowledge, innovations and technologies between scientists and end-users. Encouraging scientists, technicians and farmers to work together is a necessity to improve the future of fruit crop production in field systems.