Hello ASPS members,

Earth Hour is this weekend. More information in the March edition of Phytogen.

The March edition of Phytogen is available HERE.

ASPS members,

This  Tuesday 23^rd March is National Eucalypt Day and we would like to celebrate by sharing stories of our members’ Eucalypt research via Twitter.

To participate, either tag us (@asps_ozplants) in a tweet on the day using the hashtag #NationalEucalyptDay or email Frances.Sussmilch@utas.edu.au in advance with an action shot with your study organism and something about you and your Eucalypt research in 280 characters or less. Include your university/workplace so we can tag them too.

The March GPC e-bulletin can be accessed HERE.

Dear ASPS members,

The ARC Centres of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis and in Plant Energy Biology

Invite you to a Special Plantae Seminar on:

Creating Crops for the Future: Challenges, Technology and Sustainable Solutions

One of the most urgent scientific challenges of the 21^st century lies in ensuring that we have enough food for the growing global population. Join us for this special event where three experts in the field of plant science will speak on how scientists are advancing sustainable crops and biotechnologies to make world food security a reality.

Join Moderator Professor John Evans (ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis) in a unique forum for discussion about how critical and complex issues can be addressed, including water and land scarcity, climate change, the role of genetic engineering and other modern agricultural technologies and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches.

This event is presented by Plantae, and co-hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology.

 Speakers: Professor Pamela Ronald (UC Davis), Professor Harvey Millar (ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology) and Professor Robert Furbank (ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis)

Date: November 11, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm Australia East Coast Daylight Time (AEDT UTC+11 )

which is November 10, 7:00-9:00 pm  EST, 4:00-6:00 pm PST

Event Moderator: Professor John Evans, ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis

Organised by: Plantae – more information at https://plantae.org/creating-crops-for-the-future-challenges-technology-and-sustainable-solutions/

Register here

About the talks:

Speaker 1: Professor Pamela Ronald (UC Davis)

Title: Improving Food Security for the World’s Poorest Farmers: Rice Genetics and the Future of Food 

Summary: How do we feed a growing population and engineer crops that are resilient to climate change? How do we fight crop diseases while reducing chemical sprays? How do we enhance the nutrition of staple food crops? The rapid advance of genetic technologies has provided new tools to address these questions, and they have already made an impact at a global scale. Professor Pamela Ronald will discuss advances in the genetic basis of plant microbe interactions and will describe development of climate-resilient rice varieties grown by more than six million subsistence farmers in India and Bangladesh.                

Speaker 2: Professor Harvey Millar (ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology)

Title: Plant Energy Biology: Altering energy use efficiency in plants to enhance crop growth and yield.

Summary: After plants convert light energy into chemical energy, they then need to use it efficiently within cells to maximise growth and yield.  To tap into this potential, global efforts to improve photosynthesis are being complemented by strategies to improve energy use within plants by considering the cost of major use processes and how they can be optimised, especially under harsh and changing environmental conditions. Such processes include respiratory function, stress signalling, ion transport and protein turnover. This presentation will review some of these strategies from their inception in model plants to the progress and challenges of their deployment in crops.

Speaker 3: Professor Robert Furbank (ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis)

Title: Photons to Food: boosting photosynthesis to improve food crop yields

Summary: Photosynthetic traits have become a major focus for crop improvement in recent years as progress due to green revolution yield gains becomes exhausted.  Global efforts to improve photosynthetic performance span from transgenic targeted approaches using synthetic biology to genome-phenome approaches to sieve out the very best germplasm for more traditional breeding and genome selection. This presentation reviews some progress and challenges from both approaches and attempts to look “over the horizon” to the future of crop breeding.

Hello ASPS members,

On Wednesday we have our ASPS awardee presentations, see the details below.

On Thursday we have the ASPS AGM.

ASPS AGM

Date: Thursday, October 1.

Time: 12-2pm

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://anu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwvdOutrjojG9eIIHzpt2ElNXnit2sxBtbu

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

September Phytogen out now and available HERE

ASPS award presentations

Please join us for a special edition of Plantae Presents, featuring four Australian Society of Plant Scientists awardees: the joint-winners of the Jan Anderson Award, Crystal Sweetman and Kristine Crous; the winner of the Peter Goldacre Award, Alex Wu; and the winner of the ASPS-FBP Best Paper Award, Karen Frick. Each will present a 15 or 20 minute talk, followed by five minutes of questions. This is a two hour webinar with the start times indicated below.

Wednesday Sept 30

Adel/Dar 4.00pm

Syd/Melb/Bris/Hob/Can 4.30pm

Perth 2.30pm

UK 7:30am, CET 8:30am, EDT 2:30am, (PDT 11:30 pm Tues Sept 29)

You can now register through the link below!

https://plantae.org/plantae-presents-asps-awardees-lectures-crystal-sweetman-kristine-crous-alex-wu-and-karen-frick/

Hello ASPS members,

Please join us for a special edition of Plantae Presents, featuring four Australian Society of Plant Scientists awardees: the joint-winners of the Jan Anderson Award, Crystal Sweetman and Kristine Crous; the winner of the Peter Goldacre Award, Alex Wu; and the winner of the ASPS-FBP Best Paper Award, Karen Frick. Each will present a 15 or 20 minute talk, followed by five minutes of questions. This is a two hour webinar with the start times indicated below.

Wednesday Sept 30

Adel/Dar 4.00pm

Syd/Melb/Bris/Hob/Can 4.30pm

Perth 2.30pm

UK 7:30am, CET 8:30am, EDT 2:30am, (PDT 11:30 pm Tues Sept 29)

You can now register through the link below!

https://plantae.org/plantae-presents-asps-awardees-lectures-crystal-sweetman-kristine-crous-alex-wu-and-karen-frick/

The September GPC e-bulletin is also avaiable HERE.

Hello ASPS members,

National Science Week is coming up and we’d like to encourage everyone interested to get involved.  ASPS member Kim Johnson is involved in this great initiative for National Science Week:

The National Science Week events ‘Taste Tomorrow: what will you be eating in 2050’ is now open for registration (www.tastetomorrow.edu.au/events) and will feature a panel of experts, including plant scientists.

The ON24 events will be hosted by John Brumby and Wade Kelly. When people register they will be delivered a box of mystery ‘future foods’ to spark conversation and people can also engage with the website (www.tastetomorrow.edu.au) to find fact files, blogs, experiments (for home or school) and recipes related to the sustainability and nutrition of the foods.

Taste Tomorrow will also post videos by chefs and sports personalities creating new recipes with our future foods (Insta taste_tomorrow, Twitter @taste_tomorrow, #tastetomorrow).

Thank-you for your support!

For more information contact:

Dr Kim Johnson

Senior Research Fellow

La Trobe Institute for Agriculture & Food (LIAF)

Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Science

k.johnson@latrobe.edu.au

Hello ASPS members,

As we adjust to different ways of living and working in this changing world alternative opportunities also arise.  This year you can attend Plant Biology 2020 World Summit without having to travel to the northern hemisphere!

Plant Biology 2020 Worldwide Summit

July 27-31

Virtual event with talks, workshops, posters, networking events and virtual exhibit hall

https://plantbiology.aspb.org/

All talks will be recorded for access on demand by registered participants, and virtual posters will be available for viewing shortly before, during, and after the meeting.

#PlantBio20

Note also that there are group rates that bring the cost down significantly

We also have two new PhD opportunities have been posted on our job board and can be viewed here.

Finally a member of the public has ask for help identifying a tree they saw on a trip to the west coast of Tasmania. Responses can be e-mailed to admin@asps.org.au , FB ASPSozplants or Twitter @asps_ozplants.

ASPS members,

The ASPS Annual General Meeting is today. The AGM agenda and reports are available through the ASPS website HERE. https://www.asps.org.au/about/agm

ASPS needs you to vote for a change in constitution to appoint state-based representatives

We need 2/3 rd of financial members to vote so please click on this link today

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8KH6FV5

For more details click HERE.

To be part of the discussion click HERE.

To renew your membership so you are a financial member click HERE. You can request a new password be sent to your registered e-mail address.

Financial members are current Ordinary memberships of 1, 2 or 4 years or hold current student membership. Life and retired members are also included in this survey.

Hello ASPS members,

We’d like to draw you attention to the Symposium celebrating Barry Osmond: Reflections in a Flash which will be held Sept 12th and 13th at ANU. Registration and further information can be found on the ASPS events page HERE.

The ASPS2019 draft timetable is now available HERE or on the ASPS2019 website HERE.

Dear ASPS members,

The Australian Academy of Science awards are now open.

Consider applying or nominating for an award yourself or encouraging another to step up.

In particular consider encouraging women to apply for;

• Mid career medal: Nancy Mills
• Early career medal: Fenner

and also

• Max Day environmental science award,
• Thomas Davis research fund,
• Rudi Lemberg travelling fellowship,
• Boden conference funding support

 If you need someone in the Academy to help with a nomination, you could contact these fellows:

Hans Lambers, Steve Tyerman, Rana Munns, John Evans, TJ Higgins or Christine Beveridge through the ASPS membership directory here or click on their name above.

Also, if you want to be in the running to give an oral presentation and save $$$, the early bird registration for Innovations in Agriculture for Food Security closes April 1. More information can be found here.

Thanks

 Professor John R Evans FAA
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

 http://photosynthesis.org.au/InnovAg

ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis

 http://photosynthesis.org.au/about/

 Awards A4 flyer