Category: events

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ILS conference postponed to 2023

[A letter from ILS president Paolo Annicchiarico]

Dear colleagues and friends of the ILS,
first of all, best wishes to you and your closest ones for a healthy and prosperous 2022!

Unfortunately, the last year was more difficult than most people expected with regard to the pandemy. The problems connected to it are still on-going in many countries.

One consequence of this situation will be the postponement of the Fourth ILS Conference from 2022 to 2023. The new date for the Conference is from September 19th to September 22nd, 2023, still in Granada (Spain).

The ILS Executive Committee debated about a postponement and finally agreed on it in consideration of (i) the heavy financial consequences for the Organizing Committee of a possible conference cancellation, and (ii) the much greater perceived interest of a physical meeting relative to an on-line conference held in 2022.

We believe that the one-year postponement and the anticipation of the conference to the late-summer period (when the infection is historically lowest) minimize the risk of a non-physical conference for the new planned date. While assuring that any possible precaution will be taken by the Organizing Committee to ensure a safe participation to the conference, we anticipate that no further postponement will occur. The conference will take place on-line in the unfortunate case that the pandemy prevented a physical conference in 2023.

No ILS membership fee will be due for 2022. The ILS conference participation fees in 2023 will include the ILS membership fees for the 3-year period 2023-2025, amounting to 50 € euro as usual.

The ILS Executive Committee has also decided to organize a cycle of webinars, one per month from September 2022 to June 2023. It will be a way to be in closer contact, looking forward to meeting in person in September 2023. We aim to define the list of speakers by June 2022.

The ILS website will provide information on the postponed ILS conference and the cycle of seminars in due time. Please keep contributing to the development of this website, e.g. by communicating (to nelson.nazzicari@crea.gov.it) information on new events or on-going research projects to post in the website.

With best regards,

Paolo Annicchiarico

(President of ILS)

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In memory of Aleksandar Mikić

Aleksandar Mikic, the legume (re)searcher A sad announcement: on the morning of September 6th 2021, our beloved Slavic friend and colleague Aleksandar Mikič passed away.

Aleksandar made an outstanding contribution to the International Legume Society. He was one of the founding members of ILS, which he strongly supported in various ways during its development from the ashes of AEP – including the creation of the Society logo. He offered to host the first ILS conference in Novi Sad in 2013 and shaped nearly each aspect of it, from the conference name (2013: A Legume Odyssey) to the conference logo, bags and gadgets. Most importantly, when ILS created its magazine, Legume Perspectives, Aleksandar voluntarily acted as the Technical Editor and formatted and edited himself all the pdf files and issues of the magazine for 5 years. Also, he created the first ILS website.

Many of us had the privilege to meet him, receiving from him high motivation charged with passion for legumes and plants in general. The legume community as we know it today is open, lively, creative and with a good sense of humour. Aleksandar contributed greatly to these features with his own exceptional example, insight and human characteristics. He foresaw ILS as a key opportunity for legume research and transfer to industry, linking together the research on all legumes worldwide (grain, forage, pharmaceutical or ornamental ones; from the Old World to the Americas).

Aleksandar also valued a good team spirit. Many of us remember our debut as players of the First International Legume Football Cup that Aleksandar organized. Using his own words, an amalgam of science and fun. Aleksandar kept creating the names and logos of the participating teams for the following editions. And we are looking forward to the Fourth edition of the Cup at ILS4 in 2022 in Granada!

Aleksandar’s scientific horizons were endless, including archaeology, plant biology, breeding and farmers communities. He was a prolific writer not only of scientific papers but also books like the Lexicon of Pulse Crops and Haiku Poems about legumes, and even cartoons of Asterix or other characters focusing on legume-based stories!

In the last years, Aleksandar suffered the effects of a disease that progressively erased his ability to work. Despite that, he still managed to occasionally contribute to ILS in various ways.

We will miss Aleksandar and his bright, innovative ideas. As a tribute to Aleksandar as a poet and a scientist, we retrieve his “Lady of Legumes” poem from Grain Legumes 54 (2009) for all of you.

Inwitári! Of Legumes Dame!
I sing to praise thy noble name.
Slender thou art, a stem of vetch;
Firmly thy grace my heart did catch.
The steps of thine are gentle and light,
Leaving a trace of clover white.
The hue of thy hair is gold pure
Like a grain of soybean mature.
The lips like thine none’s ever seen,
Purple as pods of lablab bean.
Stars in thy eyes fall in showers,
Small and bright like lentil flowers.
Thy soul is fresh, fragrant and neat
As a garden full of pea sweet.
Like a firebird with flaming plumes
Thy beauty is, Lady of Legumes.

Aleksandar´s short bio 
Aleksandar Mikić, PhD, born in Pančevo, Serbia, in 1974, worked as Research Associate and annual legume breeder at the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad, Serbia. His fields of interest encompassed conventional and molecular genetics, genetic resources, breeding, agronomy, agroecology, and crop history of annual legumes. Dr. Mikić co-authored more than 350 journal papers, about 120 international conference papers, over 10 book chapters, and more than 30 legume cultivars. He was also one of the founding members of the International Legume Society (2012), among the creators of the UN FAO 10-Year Research Strategy For Pulse Crops (2016) and a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution (since 2018). 

He left his wife Sanya and daugther Sonja and son Mihailo

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The LEGVALUE network

The objectives of LEGVALUE are:

  • to define platforms for change that can help deliver greater EU self-sufficiency in vegetable protein production
  • to identify opportunities for innovation, adding value to markets and all participants in the value chains and
  • to recognise opportunities to influence change, be they at commercial, research or at policy level.

The ultimate benefits are the fostering of greater, more profitable legume and pulse production in the EU to satisfy a larger more valuable and diverse market to the financial benefit of all in the value chains and to deliver social and environmental benefits to all.

Find more at:

http://www.legvalue.eu/

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LegumeHub launched!

We welcome a new player in the field of Legumes: Legume Hub, a major output of the Legumes Translated project.

Legume Hub – Welcome

The purpose of the Legume Hub is to empower all interested in the development of legume crop production and use by providing access to validated knowledge. It is a platform dedicated to sharing knowledge and successful practices across value chains, from plant breeding, on-farm activities, through to processing and consumption.

The Hub is a multi-lingual publishing platform featuring written, spoken and visual media. Self-published articles form its core. Each article is attributed to its author(s) and their organisations. All articles published through the Hub are subject to independent peer-review and each is citable as a scientific or technical publication.

Here you can find the launch briefings.

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The 4th International Legume Society Conference – Save the date!

Dear colleagues and friends,

It is our great pleasure to welcome you to Granada (Spain), to the 4th International Legume Society Conference, which will be held between the 18th and the 21st of October 2022. This International Conference, which follows our earlier conferences in Novi Sad (2013), Tróia (2016) and Poznań (2019), aims to stimulate knowledge exchange and interactions among researchers and stakeholders interested in promoting greater cultivation and use of grain and forage legumes, as a necessary path towards more sustainable food and feed systems and healthier diets. The conference will cover a wide range of topics, organized in the following scientific sessions:

  • Legume-based value chains: innovation and optimization
  • Legume-based cropping systems: performance, ecosystem services and profitability
  • Legumes for human and animal nutrition and health
  • Legume biodiversity and genetic resource exploitation
  • Genetics and omics-based legume crop improvement
  • Legume breeding: challenges, tools, strategies and achievements
  • Legume physiology, biochemistry and systems biology
  • Beneficial legume plant-microbe interactions
  • Understanding and enhancing legume crop tolerance to abiotic stresses
  • Understanding and enhancing legume crop tolerance to biotic stresses

Further details will be provided by the conference webpage, which will be launched in autumn 2021.

The conference will take place at the Granada Conference and Exhibition Centre, well equipped with the most advanced congress facilities, located in the heart of the city at walking distance to hotels and the monumental city center.

Granada is a World Heritage city declared by UNESCO. Besides the world-renowned Alhambra Palace, Granada offers to visitors the beauty of its historic buildings and countless palaces, Arab town houses and gardens. Besides, Granada is close to the National Park of Sierra Nevada and the sunny Tropical Coast.

Recently, Granada has been awarded City of Science and Innovation. The University of Granada, one of the oldest and most prestigious seats for learning in Spain, the Health Science Technological Park, and the presence of several research Institutes from CSIC, result in a fascinating scientific atmosphere to promote and generate knowledge through many different areas, including key aspects focused in sustainable agriculture, nutrition and human health.

We hope this conference will provide a great opportunity for getting back to physical meetings as we used to live in the pre-covid19 age, with a vision for innovation and science-driven socio-economic change that is increasingly needed for more sustainable human development. We hope that you will enjoy not only the scientific program but also the Andalusian hospitality and the social activities that we will organize, to offer you an unforgettable stay in the beautiful city of Granada.

  • Dr. Paolo Annicchiarico,
    President of the International Legume Society
  • Dr. Alfonso Clemente,
    Chairman of the Organizing Committee