- Title
- ECOPLANTMED workshop: “Seeds adventure: from nature to nature through the Laboratory”
- Summary
- Saint Joseph University (USJ), ECOPLANTMED project partner in Lebanon, held a Workshop entitled: “Seeds adventure: from nature to nature through the Laboratory” at the Faculty of Science, Mar Roukoz, on Tuesday December 15th, 2015. This workshop gathered 39 participants from different backgrounds such as: representor of the Ministry of Agriculture, plant nursery owners, master students, NGO’s in order to highlight the science underneath the biological cycle of native seeds.
Pr. Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat, Head of the Life and Earth Science Department at Saint Joseph University and ECOPLANTMED project coordinator in Lebanon, welcomed the participants and gave a brief on ECOPLANTMED project aims, work packages and its different outputs where she shed the light on the main output of ECOPLANTMED project, the manual of seeds propagation.
Then, Mr Michel Bassil, on behalf of the Director of Rural Development and Natural Resources at Ministry of Agriculture presented the “Agriculture and Rural Development Programme” (ARDP), funded by the EU and implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) on behalf of the Republic of Lebanon. He focused on the National initiative to plant in the coming 20 years, 40 Million forest trees on 70,000 Hectares of public land, which represent 7% of the Lebanese territory to recover the forest areas lost in the last decades and bring the forest cover from the present 13% to 20% of the Lebanese territory.
After that, the biological life cycle of seeds was explained to the audience by Pr. Kharrat where different subjects were developed such as: seeds types, seeds dispersal, seeds dormancy, seeds germination in nature and seeds genetic diversity. In Addition, Mr. Tony Chahine from the NGO Jouzour Loubnan highlighted the phytosanitary characteristics of seeds to achieve a good germination in nurseries. Moreover, Ms. Perla Farhat, research assistant of ECOPLANTMED project, presented an overview on the International and national regulations regarding the native seeds in the world and stressed on the importance of creating new legislations in Lebanon for native seeds. Then, the experience achieved in seeds management in the Laboratory of seeds germination and conservation at Saint Joseph University where presented by Ms. Joelle Saab, Jouzour Loubnan project manager and Mr. Ramy Sakr, laboratory technical assistant. Seed collection protocols, seed treatment, conservation and germination along with the vegetative propagation techniques were presented.
The presentations were followed by an open discussion with the attending audience, who showed a big interest in all treated topics. Finally, a visit to the seed conservation and germination laboratory and for the Genomic characterization of plants laboratory were conducted.For more information about the event please contact Pr. Magda Bou Dagher Kharrat: magda.boudagher@usj.edu.lb.
- Date Published:
- Jan 19, 2016