The Global Plant Council – An International Voice for Plant Science

2013 Report by Barry Podgson

The world is facing a number of major challenges including feeding a growing population, mitigating the effects of climate change, identifying alternative energy sources and minimising biodiversity and habitat loss. To effectively solve or mitigate these current global problems will require plant science. However to effectively achieve these solutions will require an increase in the understanding of how plant research can contribute to global issues, such as food security, amongst our policy makers and funders.

In 2009 several national plant and crop science organizations around the world met for the first time to discuss world problems and how their scientists and organizations could help by increasing the impact of plant research and raising awareness about opportunities for crop improvement and sustainable agriculture.  This was the birth of the Global Plant Council (GPC), which is now a coalition of over 20 plant and crop science societies from across the globe. The central focus of the GPC is to define and engage in coordinated strategies that impact the most critical global issues; world hunger, energy, climate change, health and well-being, sustainability and environmental protection. By working together to formulate a shared vision and allowing distribution of effort the GPC aims to:-

• Increase awareness of the central importance of plant science
• Accelerate progress in solving pressing global problems via plant science based approaches
• Facilitate new research programs to address global challenges
• Enable more effective use of knowledge and resources
• Provide a focus and contact point for plant science across the globe

Since 2009 the GPC has established itself as a non-profit organization and held annual meetings in Montréal Canada (2010), Qingdao China (2011), Jeju S. Korea (2012). These annual meetings have allowed the council to identify a number of strategic initiatives that will help provide plant based solutions to the global challenges we currently face including

• Biofortification of Crops – Improving the nutritional quality of current and new crops
• Digital Seed Bank – Maintaining, understanding and preserving the wealth of crop diversity for future generations
• Diversity and Yield Stability – Identifying strategies for sustainable agriculture such as perennial crops
• Sustainable adaptation to changing environments – Identifying strategies for crop improvement to deal with a changing climate

The GPC has also been working hard to establish a formal organisational structure within council. In May 2013 Dr Ruth Bastow was appointed as the new Executive Director of the GPC and she joins a recently elected executive board consisting of; Prof. Wilhelm Gruissem (European Plant Science Organisation) – Acting President, Prof. Henry Nguyen (American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America) – Vice President, Prof. Gustavo Habermann (Brazilian Society of Plant Physiology) – Treasurer, Prof. Kasem Ahmed (African Crop Science Society) and Prof. Zhihong Xu (Chinese Society of Plant Biologists).

By exploiting the expertise of this new management structure and working together with other key organisations in this global arena, the GPC is looking forward to fulfilling its role as a strong advocate of plant science at the international level.

For further information on GPC please contact Ruth Bastow, ruth@globalplantcouncil.org

Water Pools in Grape Berries  RN Robertson Travelling Fellowship 2013 report

by Johannes Scharwies PhD Candidate

School of Agriculture Food and Wine, The University of Adelaide

e-mail: johannes.scharwies@adelaide.edu.au

A joint project between:

University of Adelaide, Waite Research Institute (Johannes Scharwies, Prof. Steve Tyerman)

University of Sydney, Centre for Carbon Water and Food (Dr. Kevin Simonin, Dr. Xin Song, A/Prof. Margaret Barbour)

Funding through the RN Robertson Travelling Fellowship by the Australian Society of Plant Scientists allowed me to visit the laboratory of Assoc. Prof Margaret Barbour at The University of Sydney’s Camden Campus and work with Dr. Kevin Simonin and Dr. Xin Song to investigate water pools in grape berries using novel stable isotope techniques.

As part of my previous Masters by Research and my current PhD at The University of Adelaide some of my research focuses on how different water pools in plants are integrated in the transpiration stream. During my Masters by Research, I investigated pre-harvest berry dehydration in Australia’s most popular red grape variety Shiraz, which can lead to significant yield losses. Berries that are affected show an imbalance between water uptake and water loss at the end of ripening causing shrivelling of the berries and concentration of sugars. This may make these berries less suitable for wine production.

When I presented my research at COMBIO 2012 in Adelaide, I was introduced to Assoc. Prof. Margaret Barbour and Dr. Kevin Simonin form The University of Sydney, who presented a poster on a novel stable isotope technique that they used to investigate changes in stable isotope composition of water in the leaf during transpiration. We discussed that this technique could also be used to investigate the contribution of different water pools to the transpiration stream in grape berries. This could reveal the sources of water which are lost during pre-harvest berry dehydration.

At the beginning of 2013, I was fortunate to win a scholarship to visit the workshop “Stable Isotopes in Biosphere Systems” at The University of Sydney’s Camden Campus. This workshop gave me a great overview about this topic that was completely novel to me and experiments that were part of the workshop demonstrated many different techniques that can be used to investigate the environment and plants using stable isotope techniques.

Encouraged by this workshop, I applied for the RN Robertson Travelling Fellowship to return to The University of Sydney and work on a project with the aim to use stable isotopes of water to trace water movement through developing grape berries. My successful application for this fellowship gave me the opportunity to return to Sydney at the beginning of this year.

For our experiments we used source water slightly enriched in H₂¹⁸O to allow calculations of berry water turnover time. Up to 20 individual berries attached to tubing for source water uptake were enclosed in a gas exchange cuvette, which proved to be better than using intact grape clusters (Fig. 1). Source water uptake was measured gravimetrically, and air leaving the cuvette was analysed by an infra-red gas analyser and an isotopic water vapour analyser. Our experiments showed that pre-veraison berries had a turnover time for water of 2.5 days, and that 60% of the water within the berry was involved in the evaporative flux. The remaining 40% of the berry water appears to be hydraulically disconnected from the flow of water.

Figure 1. Sixteen berries, each connected to the source water by tubing, are enclosed within a gas exchange cuvette. Air leaving the cuvette, is sampled by an infra-red gas analyser and an isotopic water vapour analyser.

At the end of this year, I’m planning to return to Sydney to quantify the turnover time and degree of hydraulic connection for berries of different varieties, and at different stages of development.  We will also experimentally modify water exchange between symplastic and apoplastic water pools by using chemical blocker substances that are known to change water permeability of aquaporins, which are molecular water channels in cell membranes. By directly extracting symplastic and apoplastic fluids from berries at different times of the experiment, we also hope to gain direct evidence for different rates of water enrichment for these two pools.

I’m very grateful to the Australian Society of Plant Scientists for funding my project, which gave me the opportunity to learn this new exciting technique and apply it to my research on grape berry water relations. I would also like to thank Assoc. Prof Margaret Barbour, Dr. Kevin Simonin, and Dr. Xin Song from The University of Sydney for inviting me to their laboratory and their help with the experiments, and my supervisor Prof. Steve Tyerman from The University of Adelaide for his support. Thanks also to Ms Wendy Sullivan, who took care of the grapevines, at The University of Adelaide.