Report by PhD students from IRTG 2172, pictures by V. Lipka, J. Wassiltschenko

Annually the IRTG holds a retreat where the PhD students give presentations and talks about their research. Also the thesis committees meet to discuss the progress of the PhD student's work. In 2016 the retreat took place in Vancouver where the Canadian colleagues hosted us. This year we gathered in Burg Ludwigstein near Witzenhausen where we spent the last three real hot summer days. Burg Ludwigstein is a perfect retreat place with hostel-like rustique rooms, cozy common areas and surroundings but also a very modern and light conference room. A perfect environment for work and gathering. Our Canadian guests were the profs Ljerka Kunst, George Haughn and James Kronstad. From the PhD group Sean McCotter, Robert McGee, Ana Priscilla Montenegro and Krešimir Sola visited us. They were accompanied by the postdocs Pingtao Ding and Matthias Kretschmer.



We had a very tight schedule with 21 presentations by PhD students from Göttingen and Vancouver and an after Dinner lecture on Monday by our Canadian professor James Kronstad. Moreover one young researcher from the UBC, Yuli Ding, came already one month prior to the retreat to work in the lab of Prof. Ivo Feussner, German speaker of the IRTG. Krešimir Sola, came to the retreat and is right now staying in the same lab for two month. Right before the retreat some of the Göttingen PhD students just came back from their exchange in Vancouver.

We met for work but of course, we had a social program too which is essential for team building. On Tuesday afternoon, we did a wonderful hiking trip first to Burg Hanstein which you already can spot from Burg Ludwigstein but is on the eastern side of the former German border. So, a brief history lesson was absolved too! Then we went on to a lovely inn at Teufelskanzel, a famous viewpoint where you have perfect sight over a sling of the river Werra. In the evening we rewarded us for this 18 km hike in bright sunshine with a barbecue at Burg Ludwigstein.

While the official retreat was over on Wednesday we were happy to invite our guests from Vancouver to several lab visits on Thursday and to an industry excursion to the seed breeding company KWS in Einbeck on the following Friday. The excursion was organized by Dr. Marcel Wiermer from the Göttingen part if the IRTG. We all had a great time. We were happy to welcome our Canadian partners here in Germany and look forward to excellent collaboration in the future.

The 2018 retreat will again take place in Burg Ludwigstein June 17th to 19th due to the close date to our International Plant Immunity Symposium which will be the 1st IRTG Symposium.