The annual meeting for the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2012CB416906) was held in Beijing on 25 and 26 November 2015. The meeting was undertaken by Northwest A & F University. Experts attending the meeting were listed as follows: the chairman of advisory group-Prof. Honglie Sun (academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)); the tracking experts of consulting group-Prof. Yunlong Cai, Prof. Rui Li and Prof. Jincheng Shang; members of expert group-Prof. Bojie Fu (academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences), Prof. Shirong Liu, Prof. Chuanping Yang, Prof. Jianhui Xue, Prof. Xingguo Han, Prof. Fengqi Jiang, Prof. Shidong Zhao and Prof. Jiaojun Zhu; members of peer experts-Prof. Guirui Yu, Prof. Changjie Jin and Prof. Gehong Wei. Additionally, Gen Wu from Ministry of Science and Technology, Hongxiang Zhang and Xiaonan Duan from Frontier Science and Education Bureau, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nan Sun from Northwest A & F University, and Junchen Zhuo from Institute of Applied Ecology, CAS and major researchers of the Program also attended the meeting.

Firstly, Gen Wu introduced the management process and prospects of the 973 Programs. After the welcoming remarks given by Gehong Wei and Changjie Jin, Prof. Bojie Fu hosted the meeting. Prof. Jiaojun Zhu, the Chief Scientist for the 973 Program, and six researchers who were in charge of the tasks, reported the annual progresses for the whole program and each task. After the reports and discussions, all the experts agreed that there was a better progress for each task during the past one year, the Chief Scientist managed the Program efficiently, and the members in the Program worked actively. The experts also gave some suggestions on the research contents and progresses of the Program.

Prof. Honglie Sun suggested that the researchers should resolve problems on ecosystem scale that plantation forests are facing in China, as well as clarify the key processes and mechanisms of plantation forests. He also advised that the researchers should conclude two or three innovations for the final report of the Program to provide rational insights into the development of plantation forests. The three tracking experts and Prof. Bojie Fu positively reviewed on the program management conducted by the Chief Scientist, and suggested that the six tasks in the Program should strongly link with each other to tackle the country’s big issues of plantation forests. They also advised that the researchers should summarize the research content with the goal of final target of the Program to support for the afforestation in China.

On 26 November, Prof. Jiaojun Zhu and researchers in the Program discussed the suggestions and problems proposed by the experts. Prof. Zhu indicated that the researchers in Task 1 and Task 6 should discuss how to upscale some results at the individual-tree level obtained in Task 1 to forest stand level, and further to ecosystem level by using the mechanism model or remote sensing technology. The frameworks of the Task 2 and Task 3 should be integrated to solve the soil nutrient problems in plantation forests. The Task 4 and Task 5 should be coupled to illustrate the relationships between productivity and biodiversity and between productivity and carbon sequestration of plantation forest ecosystem. He also demanded the researchers should carefully consider the suggestions from experts and adjust the research contents in each task to get ready for the final assessment of the Program in 2016.