The 9th IAWA – China Group Annual Meeting and 2022 International Youth Forum for Wood Anatomy were held online on December 10-11, 2022, sponsored by IAWA – China Group, organized by South China Agricultural University (SCAU), co-sponsored by International Association of Wood Anatomists  (IAWA), International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO), International Academy of Wood Sciences  (IAWS), International Wood Culture Association (IWCS). The theme of the conference was “Wood Anatomy and Wood Utilization – Future for Ecozoic Era and Community”. The main venue was located at SCAU, meanwhile, Nanjing Forestry University (NJFU), Zhejiang A&F University, Anhui Agricultural University (AHAU), Southwest Forestry University (SWFU), and other units have set up offline sub-venues. The Vice President of SCAU Rongliang Qiu, the former Editor-in-Chief of IAWA Journal Pieter Baas, IUFRO Coordinator of the Forest Products Division Dr. Saranpää Pekka, IAWS President Yoon Soo KIM, IWCS President Dr. Howard Rosen and IAWA Executive Secretary Yafang Yin delivered opening remarks.

Professor Rongliang Qiu, SCAU	Professor Pieter Baas, IAWA
Dr. Saranpää Pekka, IUFRO	Professor Yoon Soo KIM, IAWS
Dr. Howard Rosen, IWCS	Professor Steven Jansen, Ulm University
Main venue at SCAU	Part of online venue

The China Group Annual Meeting was held in the morning on December 10th and 11th. This annual meeting has the largest group of participants in the history of the IAWA-China Group. More than 360 people from 88 organizations attended the conference. Honorary Chairman of IAWA-China Group Professor Biao Pan delivered a keynote lecture entitled "Progress of Wood Anatomy Research in China". Professor Yongdong Wang from Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences gave a keynote lecture entitled " Mesozoic climate perturbations and paleo-CO2 variations: evidence from fossil plants of China ", and Professor Jin Sun of SCAU delivered a keynote lecture entitled “Utilization of biomass resources in Guangdong ". There were six invited speakers and 43 oral presenters gave their presentations on xylem formation, dendrochronology, archaeological wood, wood identification, wood properties, new materials derived from wood, wood and bamboo utilization, and wood utilization, etc.

The committee members of the IAWA China group elected nine qualified graduate students for the Excellent Presentation Awards (EPA) of the IAWA-China Group. The first prize winner was Jiawei Huang from SCAU with the topic of “Cell wall composition of Camellia oleifera Abel. shell: new insights from its composition and structure”. The second prize went to Shimin Chu from the Research Institute of Wood Industry, Chinese Academy of Forestry with the topic of “Degradation of wooden piles at cell wall level from the Shahe Ancient Bridge Site”, Jing Xue from Beijing Forestry University with the topic of “Changes in structural and compositional of Bamboo by four decaying fungi ”, and Xiaodie Dou from NJFU with the topic of  “Analysis of the formation of light and dark striped patterns--Take Cinnamomum camphora as an example”. The third prize was awarded to Jing Wang from Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Youmei Wang from Sichuan Agricultural University, Yan Yan from SWFU, Zijing Liu from AHAU, and Liyuan Qin from Central China Agricultural University.

The 2022 International Youth Forum for Wood Anatomy was held on the afternoon of December 10th, attracting over 200 participants from more than 20 countries. Professor Steven Jansen from Ulm University presented a keynote lecture entitled "The significance of porous media and polar lipids for fluid transport in angiosperm xylem". Subsequently, 16 young scholars from 11 countries, including the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Kew Gardens, the National Research and Innovation Center of Indonesia, the University of Bordeaux in France, Ulm University in Germany, the National Forestry Research Institute in Japan, the Mississippi State University in the United States, the National Institute of Science of Canada, the Institute of Wood Industry of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, and Southwest Forestry University, delivered oral presentations. For the first time, the 2022 Forum established the Sherwin Carlquist Award, elected by the International Scientific Advisory Committee, and the first prize was awarded to Kamil Frankiewics with the topic of “Raylessness: from Carlquist's paedomorphosis to metacambial syndrome”, from the University of Cape Town and the Compton Herbarium of National Biodiversity Institute, South Africa. The second prize winner was Bingwei Chen from Nanjing Forestry University, China, and the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany with the topic of “Study on the cell wall structure and mechanical properties of phloem fibres from Pteroceltis tatarinowii”; and Vicky Beckers from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center and Leiden University, the Netherlands with the topic of “Comparative wood anatomy and origin of woodiness of two Apocynaceae subfamilies”.


IAWA-China Group and the local organizer, South China Agricultural University, actively built a conference platform, provided important academic exchange opportunities for scholars and graduate students in the field of wood anatomy to share the latest research progress, and effectively promoted the international and domestic cooperation and development of wood science and technology and related disciplines.

In 2023, the 10th Annual Meeting of IAWA-China will be held in Nanjing, China, co-hosted by Nanjing Forestry University and Nanjing Forest Police College.