The “world petunia days” congress
 
The « World Petunia days » is a scientific congress organized roughly every 18 months, aimed to promote collaboration among Petunia scientists worldwide and to provide the opportunity to present new results and research projects. Topics of the seminars traditionally cover molecular mechanisms controlling flower development (flower organ development, inflorescence architecture, petal senescence, scent production, self-incompatibility, flower pigmentation, pollination syndromes), root development (adventitious root formation, mycorrhiza interactions) and Petunia functional genomics (Insertion flanking sequence databases, transcriptome analyses, strategies for Petunia genome sequencing). New topics on Petunia research are obviously also welcome. Traditionally, the Petunia Days have an informal and friendly character, so that people can exchange ideas, materials, techniques, and unpublished data without any inhibition. The organization of the World Petunia days is done by volunteering participants of the Petunia platform. Place, date and organizer of the next WPD’s are each time determined at the last day of the congress. Upcoming: 17th World Petunia Days 2019, Italy Previous World Petunia days: 16th World Petunia Days, 15-18 March 2018 Organized by Robert Schuurink’s group, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands 15th World Petunia Days, 9-11 Sept 2016 Organized by Katja Richert-Pöggeler ’s group, Leucorea, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany 14th World Petunia Days, 9-12 April 2015 Organized by Didier Reinhardt’s group at the Fribourg University, Fribourg, Switzerland 13th World Petunia Days, 13-16 Sep 2013 Organized by Tom Gerats' group at the Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands 12th World Petunia Days, 18-21 March 2012 Organized by Uwe Druege's group at the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ), Erfurt, Germany 11th World Petunia Days, 26-28 Sep 2010 Organized by by Michiel Vandenbussche's group at the Ecole Normale Superieure (ENS), Lyon, France 10th World Petunia Days, 28 march -01 april 2009 Organized by by Marcos Egea-Cortinez's group at the Universidad Politecnica de Cartagena, Cartagena, Spain 9th World Petunia Days, 28-31 Oct 2007 Organized by Francesca Quattrocchio’s group (meeting) ; Tom Gerats’ group (website) ; Michel Haring’s group (location) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands 8th World Petunia Days, 12-14 Oct 2006 Organized by Dave Clark’s group and held in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, USA 7th World Petunia Days, 15-17 Sep 2005 Organized by Tim Robbins’ group and held at Nottingham University, Nottingham, UK 6th World Petunia Days, 2004 Organized by Cris Kuhlemeier’s group at Bern University, Bern, Switzerland

Petunia scientists tasting

local culture

learning Flamenco!