We are pleased to announce Cold Spring Harbor Asia conference on Genome Assisted Biology of Crops and Model Plant Systems which will be held in Suzhou, China, located approximately 60 miles west of Shanghai. The conference will begin at 7:00pm on the evening of Monday April 21, and will conclude after lunch on Friday, April 25, 2014. The conference will include eight oral sessions and one poster session covering the latest findings across many topics in plant biology. Many talks will be selected from the openly submitted abstracts on the basis of scientific merit and relevance. Social events throughout the conference provide ample opportunity for informal interactions. Recent years have witnessed enormous advances in our ability to apply genomics technologies to the study of non-model organisms. This conference will present recent breakthroughs in the use of genomics to understand the biology and productivity of plants. A broad range of topics will be united with a common theme of using basic biology to improve crop plant productivity and sustainability.