Horses Feeding at the Horse Teaching Unit in Gainesville, FL
Perennial Peanut Forage for Hay
Cattle in a Mob Stocking Grazing Experiment
Grazing Dairy Production
Bales of Hay Being Transported
Combine Harvesting of Forage Seed
Square Forage Bales Stacked in a Field
Photosynthesis Measurement of Grasses
Turfgrasses Being Evaluated for Rooting
Turfgrass for Sporting Events – "GO Gators!"
Turfgrasses for Golf Courses
Horses Grazing Forage Grasses
Rye Forage as a Windbreak
Turfgrass Production with Irrigation
Experimental Turf-Type Bahiagrasses
Crimson Clover Field in Oregon

Introduction & Overview

The International Forage & Turfgrass Breeding Conference (IFTBC) is the first joint meeting of the 10th Molecular Breeding of Forages and Turf Conference (MBFT) and the 6th International Symposium of Forage Breeding (ISFB). This first of a kind joint meeting will be held in March 2019 in Orlando, Florida. The time and venue have been selected to allow participants to experience the transition in species composition from cool to warm season in North and Central Florida. Participants will also enjoy Florida’s delightful weather at this time of year. We believe forage and turfgrass improvement research is on the precipice of revolutionary developments and this conference offers a unique opportunity for worldwide showcase and collaboration.

About the Conference

The MBFT conference has previously met in various international venues including Dallas, TX; The Noble Foundation, Ardmore, OK; USDA Forage and Range Lab, Logan UT (all in the USA); Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Wales; Sapporo, Japan; Istanbul, Turkey; and Lanzhou, China. The first three ISFB were organized by scientists with EMBRAPA and held in Brazil, with more recent meetings at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and National University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

These two conferences traditionally bring together the premier forage and turf breeding scientists from around the world and have become a select “go to” venue for modern plant breeders. Following the 5th ISFB in Argentina in October 2015 and the 9th MBFT in Lanzhou, China in July 2016, organizers for both conferences agreed to attempt a combined meeting of both groups in Florida in 2019.

The UF/IFAS Agronomy Department will host this combined meeting in the spring of 2019. Primary local organizers include Ken Quesenberry, Emeritus Professor of forage and turfgrass breeding, Ann Blount, Professor of forage and small grains breeding, Fredy Altpeter, Professor of breeding and molecular genetics of forage and bioenergy crops, Kevin Kenworthy, Professor of turfgrass and forage breeding, and Esteban Rios, Assistant Professor of forage breeding and genetics.




The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is a federal-state-county partnership dedicated to developing knowledge in agriculture, human and natural resources, and the life sciences, and enhancing and sustaining the quality of human life.

UF/IFAS OCI

OCI stands for the Office of Conferences & Institutes. It is a full service conference planning agency at the University of Florida. OCI was created to support the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) mission to develop knowledge in agriculture, human and natural resources, and to make that knowledge available to people to sustain and enhance the quality of life.

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Get in Touch

  • Phone:
    (352) 294-3581
  • Email:
    bmt@ufl.edu
  • Address:
    2311 Mowry Road, Bldg. 78
    PO Box 110750
    Gainesville, FL 32611
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