B. Report on Second International Rice Genetics Symposium

The Second International Rice Genetics Symposium was held at IRRI, Los Banos from May 14-18, 1990 and was attended by 300 geneticists ftom 24 coun- tries. First three days were devoted to oral paper presentations. Sixty-four oral papers were presented in following twelve sessions.

1) Varietal differentiation and evolution

2) Genetic markers, linkage groups and aneuploids

3) Genetics of stress tolerance

4) Genetics of morphological and physiological traits

5) Genetics of disease and insect resistance

6) Tissue and cell culture

7) Molecular genetics of cytoplasmic genomes

8) Molecular genetics of nuclear genomes

9) RFLP analysis of rice genomes

10) Molecular genetics of rice proteins

11) Molecular genetics of disease resistance

12) Transformation techniques.

Seventy papers were presented in the poster session. Fourth day of the symposium was devoted to poster sessions, field tour and laboratory visits. Adhoc Committees met in the evenings to discuss problems of gene symbolization and chromosome numbering systems. A nominating committee was appointed to propose the names of new members and office bearers of the Coordinating Com- mittee of RGC and its various Standing Committees.

Reports of the four ad hoc committees and the nominating committee were presented to the general body of the symposium in the morning of May 18, 1990. The reports of the ad hoc committee were accepted by the general body and appear in the following pages. The membership and office bearers of the Coordinating Committee of RGC and its Standing Committees as proposed by the nomination committee were approved by the general body. The names of the office bearers and members of various committees appear on the inside of the cover page of this newsletter.

The oral papers and abstracts of poster papers are being edited and will be published by IRRI in the form of a book entitled Rice Genetics II.

G. S. Khush