Gesellschaft für Pflanzenzüchtung e.V. (GPZ)

The Society for Plant Breeding was founded in Göttingen in 1991. It emerged as a scientific forum for plant breeding after the reunification of Germany from a working group of the Society for Plant Breeding Sciences and a corresponding association in the former GDR. Its members are scientists and those active in the scientific fields of breeding research and the seed breeding industry in the German-speaking world, and the Society for Plant Breeding organizes a scientific congress every two years at different locations. At regular intervals, it invites participants to a general discussion and demonstration of scientific work in 19 different working groups. These meetings are equally dedicated to methodological questions, e.g. from biometrics and bio-informatics, breeding theory, cytogenetics, biotechnology and genome analysis, disease resistance, performance and stress physiology, as well as specific object problems, e.g. in cereals, maize, beets, potatoes, oilseeds, forage plants and grasses, vegetables, ornamental plants and woody plants. The society awards the Kurt von Rümker Prize to promote young scientists and organizes seminars to train seed breeding technicians. In joint events, it maintains an interdisciplinary exchange with neighboring specialist societies and research institutions, in particular with its "parent society", the Society for Plant Sciences, with which it is also linked by joint working groups, such as the 'Variety and Seed Science' working group and the 'Yield and Stress Physiology' working group.