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See John Evans speaking at the opening of the LT Evans Plant Growth Facility at the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines in our latest Phytogen blog post

Calling all early-stage career scientists!

Global Plant Council E-Bulletin September 2016 Forward to a Friend |  View web version (also click here to translate to other languages!)

Email Us GPC Website GPC Blog @GlobalPlantGPC @GPC_EnEspanol Facebook Donate E-Bulletin /  September 2016 Yes, we know it’s already October…apologies that your September edition of the Global Plant Council’s monthly e-Bulletin is a little late! The GPC team has been busy travelling in recent days and weeks, and this email comes to you from sunny Brisbane, Australia, where we’ve just had a great week at the ComBio 2016 conference, and held our Annual General Meeting! We’ll tell you more about our trip when we get back to GPC HQ, but in the meantime, welcome to any new subscribers! The GPC’s e-Bulletin is a monthly round-up of the latest plant science news, events, reports, funding opportunities and blog posts from the GPC community. If you have anything you would like us to help promote then please do get in touch! Contact Lisa, GPC’s Outreach & Communications Manager: lisa@globalplantcouncil.org.

Latest News /  View more…

If you have news you would like us to share on our website, please contact lisa@globalplantcouncil.org 

If you have a conference, meeting, workshop, training course or other event coming up, we can include it in our Events calendar! Please email lisa@globalplantcouncil.org

International Agrobiodiversity Congress 2016
06–09 November 2016. New Delhi, India. 

Reunión Argentina de Fisiología Vegetal
13–16 November 2016. Ciudad de Corrientes, Argentina. 

1st Cold Spring Harbor Asia Conference: Latest Advances in Plant Development & Environmental Response
29 November–02 December 2016. Awaji, Japan. 
13–16 November 2016. Ciudad de Corrientes, Argentina. 

Global Plant Council Nutritional Security White Paper (PDF)
In case you missed it earlier in the year, you can download the Global Plant Council’s Nutritional Security white paper here.

The Cyclamen Society has established a new grant fund to provide up £5000 GBP for relevant research projects. International applicants are encouraged to apply; the research may be directly or indirectly related to Cyclamen.
More info…

Would you like to contribute an article to the GPC’s blog? Please get in touch! Email lisa@globalplantcouncil.org

Come together
In this reblog from Nature Plants, the pros and cons of attending plant science conferences are discussed. 

Cassava brown streak: lessons from the field
University of Bristol PhD student Katie Tomlinson shares the highlights and learnings from a recent field trip to Uganda. 

1000 Plants
A familiar face is behind this blog post on the 1000 Plants initiative – former GPC New Media Fellow Amelia Frizell-Armitage missed us and asked to write us a post! 

Members /

Click here for details of the GPC Member Societies and Affiliates and their representatives. 

Please contact Ruth Bastow (ruth@globalplantcouncil.org) to find out how your organization can join the Global Plant Council. 

The GPC is a coalition of plant and crop science societies and affiliates from across the globe. The GPC seeks to bring plant scientists together to work synergistically toward solving the pressing problems we face. Please click here to make a donation via PayPal to help support the GPC.

John Evans speaking at the opening of the LT Evans Plant Growth Facility at the International Rice Research Institute, Philippines, 21 January 2016 (left). The opening took place during IRRI Science Week and John, Murray Badger, Spencer Whitney, Paul Quick and Florence Danila contributed talks to the IRRI-Australia symposium.

The $10M facility was a gift from Australia to IRRI (right). It was named after John’s father Lloyd who served on the IRRI board and whose efforts led to the first phytotron donated to IRRI around 2000. Inside the facility, rice seed handling and storage will occur on the left hand side and greenhouses, growth cabinets and laboratories for non transgenic research occurs on the right hand side. The building is engineered to withstand typhoons that frequently affect the area.

Behind the scenes, Spencer Whitney was planning a takeover of yet more office and lab space with his favourite colour scheme (right). His long face reflects his concern that one student talk had failed to mention Rubisco during the IRRI-Australia symposium.

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Dear ASPS members,

It seems that we have not received nominations for all the positions that fall vacant this year. In particular, we need to have nominations for Honorary Treasurer, Discipline rep for Plant Microbe Interactions and student representatives. You may recall we had the good fortune of needing to hold an election last year for one of the Discipline areas.

I would like to thank Brent Kaiser for his efforts as ASPS Honorary Treasurer and urge you to consider helping the society by nominating for this position which is generally held for a 3 year term. The nomination form is attached and it needs to reach the Secretary by October 3.

Thanks
John

Professor John R Evans FAA
Head, Division of Plant Sciences
Research School of Biology
The Australian National University
134 Linnaeus Way
Acton, ACT, 2601, Australia

T: 61 2 6125 4492
M: 0477 777132
W: http://biology.anu.edu.au/john_evans/
E: John.evans@anu.edu.au
President, Australian Society of Plant Scientists

Home

ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis

About

Millicent Smith riding around Jülich

Using P. vulgaris (common bean) as a model system my PhD research has focused on the impact of abiotic stress, particularly drought and phosphorus deficiency, on photosynthetic capacity and the translation of resources into a developing seed.

Initial discussions with my PhD supervisor, Dr. Andrew Merchant, kept coming back to the same problem of our inability to fully understand source-sink dynamics if we couldn’t measure sink strength. This eventually led us to a portable NMR sensor, developed by Dr. Carel Windt and others at the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences (IBG-2) at Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ). FZJ is a large interdisciplinary science research centre set in a beautiful forest close to a town called Jülich, in the west of Germany.

The mobile nuclear magnetic resonance sensor (NMR) allows for the non-invasive, real-time measurement of water status and dry matter accumulation over seed development. Due to the portable and compact nature of the sensor it may be used to analyse components of a whole fixed plant, for instance a developing fruit (see Windt et al. 2011).

Portable NMR sensor developed at FZJ that non-invasively measures water and dry matter in real-time

During the first year of my PhD, I worked closely with Dr. Carel Windt to assess the suitability and application of the NMR sensor in common bean. This initial visit to Jülich was the first time the NMR sensor was applied to a biological question. It was an important first step as we were able to complete a calibration and an experiment during this time.

I have learned a lot since that initial visit and thanks to the support from the Australian Society of Plant Scientists R.N Robertson Travelling Fellowship I was able to return to Jülich this year. Having previously visited for a short time in 2014 made it a little easier this time around. Not only did I have the knowhow for navigating the huge “SeeCasino” cafeteria, so lunchtime wasn’t as confusing, I also had a better understanding of the NMR methodology that we were able to apply to our experiments and answer some new questions.

We planned two separate experiments both aiming to manipulate source strength and observe whether we are able to detect a change in pod loading rates. One experiment was completed in a small climate chamber where we altered lengths of light-dark periods in an attempt to assess whether changes in starch cycling would impact on the developing grain, in particular the timing and magnitude of such an effect. The other experiment completed in the glasshouse using a multiplexed NMR system (6 NMR sensors all attached to the 1 spectrometer so we can measure lots of plants at once and keep measurements consistent) altered source strength of plants by pruning to investigate whether we could detect changes in loading rates within the sink tissue compared to plants that weren’t pruned.

While the glasshouse experiment didn’t go exactly as planned towards the end when a European “heat wave” stopped measurement time, what we found from both experiments was exciting and unexpected. Our results showed that under a range of conditions where source strength was manipulated, for instance a week in the dark and/or significant pruning (80% leaf area removed), loading of dry matter into the pod stayed the same as prior to the treatment or relative to the control. This result has sparked my interest and made me consider whether pods are more independent of leaves than we had previously thought.

Overall my time in Jülich was amazing. It was nice to have a taste of European life; I enjoyed riding my bicycle to the institute (on the days when it wasn’t raining) through the fields and forest, I loved trying different unpronounceable German bakery treats and sitting in the town square having a beer from the pub. It was great to be in Jülich for the biannual open day Tag der Neguier where I could join thousands of others when FZJ stopped their strict security checks for 1 day for citizens to come and discover the interesting research that they do and share in the excitement and passion that everyday Germans have for science.

I have come away from my visits to Jülich with lots of exciting data for my thesis (and some papers) but most of all I left knowing that I had made connections with leaders in my field, been exposed to interesting and novel ideas and technologies that I might have considered impossible before and confidence in my ability to collaborate, communicate and initiate my ideas.

I am incredibly grateful to the ASPS for awarding me an R.N Robertson Travelling Fellowship, to Carel Windt for inviting me to FZJ and the many others in the Emerging Technologies group for the lunchtime conversations and help, and finally to my supervisors Andrew Merchant and Tom Buckley who have encouraged me to collaborate and pursue interesting scientific questions.

Phytogen Blog: RN Robertson Travelling Fellowship –

Report by Millicent Smith

Millicent Smith riding around Jülich

Using P. vulgaris (common bean) as a model system my PhD research has focused on the impact of abiotic stress, particularly drought and phosphorus deficiency, on photosynthetic capacity and the translation of resources into a developing seed.

Initial discussions with my PhD supervisor, Dr. Andrew Merchant, kept coming back to the same problem of our inability to fully understand source-sink dynamics if we couldn’t measure sink strength. This eventually led us to a portable NMR sensor, developed by Dr. Carel Windt and others at the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences (IBG-2) at Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ). FZJ is a large interdisciplinary science research centre set in a beautiful forest close to a town called Jülich, in the west of Germany.

The mobile nuclear magnetic resonance sensor (NMR) allows for the non-invasive, real-time measurement of water status and dry matter accumulation over seed development. Due to the portable and compact nature of the sensor it may be used to analyse components of a whole fixed plant, for instance a developing fruit (see Windt et al. 2011).

Portable NMR sensor developed at FZJ that non-invasively measures water and dry matter in real-time

During the first year of my PhD, I worked closely with Dr. Carel Windt to assess the suitability and application of the NMR sensor in common bean. This initial visit to Jülich was the first time the NMR sensor was applied to a biological question. It was an important first step as we were able to complete a calibration and an experiment during this time.

I have learned a lot since that initial visit and thanks to the support from the Australian Society of Plant Scientists R.N Robertson Travelling Fellowship I was able to return to Jülich this year. Having previously visited for a short time in 2014 made it a little easier this time around. Not only did I have the knowhow for navigating the huge “SeeCasino” cafeteria, so lunchtime wasn’t as confusing, I also had a better understanding of the NMR methodology that we were able to apply to our experiments and answer some new questions.

We planned two separate experiments both aiming to manipulate source strength and observe whether we are able to detect a change in pod loading rates. One experiment was completed in a small climate chamber where we altered lengths of light-dark periods in an attempt to assess whether changes in starch cycling would impact on the developing grain, in particular the timing and magnitude of such an effect. The other experiment completed in the glasshouse using a multiplexed NMR system (6 NMR sensors all attached to the 1 spectrometer so we can measure lots of plants at once and keep measurements consistent) altered source strength of plants by pruning to investigate whether we could detect changes in loading rates within the sink tissue compared to plants that weren’t pruned.

While the glasshouse experiment didn’t go exactly as planned towards the end when a European “heat wave” stopped measurement time, what we found from both experiments was exciting and unexpected. Our results showed that under a range of conditions where source strength was manipulated, for instance a week in the dark and/or significant pruning (80% leaf area removed), loading of dry matter into the pod stayed the same as prior to the treatment or relative to the control. This result has sparked my interest and made me consider whether pods are more independent of leaves than we had previously thought.

Overall my time in Jülich was amazing. It was nice to have a taste of European life; I enjoyed riding my bicycle to the institute (on the days when it wasn’t raining) through the fields and forest, I loved trying different unpronounceable German bakery treats and sitting in the town square having a beer from the pub. It was great to be in Jülich for the biannual open day Tag der Neguier where I could join thousands of others when FZJ stopped their strict security checks for 1 day for citizens to come and discover the interesting research that they do and share in the excitement and passion that everyday Germans have for science.

I have come away from my visits to Jülich with lots of exciting data for my thesis (and some papers) but most of all I left knowing that I had made connections with leaders in my field, been exposed to interesting and novel ideas and technologies that I might have considered impossible before and confidence in my ability to collaborate, communicate and initiate my ideas.

I am incredibly grateful to the ASPS for awarding me an R.N Robertson Travelling Fellowship, to Carel Windt for inviting me to FZJ and the many others in the Emerging Technologies group for the lunchtime conversations and help, and finally to my supervisors Andrew Merchant and Tom Buckley who have encouraged me to collaborate and pursue interesting scientific questions.

Your membership is paid to[wpmlfield name=”paidtodate”] (year, month, day).

Your membership is paid to[wpmlfield name=”paidtodate”] (year, month, day).

Your membership is paid to [wpmlfield name=”paidtodate”] (year, month, day).

Hello ASPS members,

Our annual dinner is being held during ComBio in Brisbane on Wednesday October 5 at 7pm. I would like to encourage all our ASPS members attending ComBio to come along and for those of you near Brisbane that may not be attending ComBio, you are invited as well. My Linh Hoang has arranged this year’s event and it will be slightly different because it comes with sponsorship! The dinner will cost $50 for members and students will be subsidised, so the cost for them is just $20, but there is a catch – the venue has only enough space for 10 tables with 8 people at each so you need to let My Linh lt.hoang@qut.edu.au know if you are interested by 25 September. Payment and ticket issue will happen at the ComBio registration desk from Tuesday lunchtime onwards (4 Oct). The dinner will be two courses with wine/soft drink/tea/coffee and be held in the panoramic Gibson room on the 10^th floor of QUT, just across the river from the convention centre. For those of you who have come in previous years, you will know that it is a great event that brings our society together and catch up or get to know new members. Normally it is organised by our student representatives, but the sponsorship offer from  QUT-IFE https://www.qut.edu.au/institute-for-future-environments this year seemed a great opportunity.

I hope to see you there.

John

Professor John R Evans FAA President, Australian Society of Plant Scientists

E: john.evans@anu.edu.au

http://www.asps.org.au/