Mr. Dequan Liu, a graduate student under the JIRCAS Educational Research Training Program, received a ‘Certificate of Achievement’ from the Dean of the Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, for demonstrating excellence in studies through and research. Mr. Liu is a doctoral student majoring in Biosphere Resource Science and Technology under the supervision of Dr. Yasunari Fujita, Senior Researcher of the Biological Resources and Post-harvest Division (Professor at the University of Tsukuba Cooperative Graduate School System). He started pursuing his research on analysis of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for important agricultural traits in soybeans from October 2015 under the supervision of Dr. Donghe Xu, Project Leader of the research on development of crops adaptable to adverse environments.

During the three-year research at JIRCAS, Mr. Liu not only determined the  QTLs that affect the flowering time of soybean, but also the QTL that has a major impact on soybean seed weight and quality. These research results will lead to the development of highly productive soybean breeding materials that can cope with adverse environments, and will greatly contribute to the research promotion of crops with poor environmental tolerance. So far, the results of his research on soybean QTL have been published in 2 international journals, Molecular Breeding (Vol. 38 Issue 45 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11032-018-0808-z) and Breeding Science (Vol. 68 Issue 4 pp. 442-448), respectively. The awarding ceremony was held at the University of Tsukuba on September 25, 2018, together with the graduation ceremony for conferment of the PhD degree to Mr. Liu.