Professor Sergey Shabala had his first exposure to the Australian plant science community nearly 23 years ago, while attending Combio in Sydney in 1995. Being raised under strict academic rules in the former USSR, I was probably the only person wearing a suit and a tie at that meeting (except perhaps a conference Chair who has removed it soon after leaving the podium). Equally shocking to me (in a cultural sense) was the first-named basis, and the fact that a PhD student can corner a Nobel Laureate and ask a question related to his work during the tea break. This was simply unthinkable in the system I was raised. Now, looking back at the beginning of my research career in Australia, I believe that this level of “liberalism” has become a catalyst that allowed me to develop my skills as an independent researcher and brought me to my current level. This view has been then reinforced by my own experience as a PhD supervisor and research mentor. Running a large (over 20 people) and truly multinational (11 nationalities) laboratory, I am dealing with various cultural aspects of research management on a daily basis. While the sample size is probably not big enough to draw an explicit conclusion, I have noticed that the sooner my students stop calling me Sir or Doctor and start using the first name, the quicker they integrate in the system, and develop their potential.

Over the same 23 years, I had a privilege to work with many of my colleagues (both in Australia and overseas); some of them became my role models and inspired me to become who I am now. The atmosphere of the friendship and openness and a true collaborative spirit has always been a hallmark of the Australian plant science community, and we need to ensure that these great traditions are maintained and passed to the future generation of Australian research leaders.

Another striking aspect of the Australian system was that our research is driven by curiosity, in a true spirit of the academic freedom. While we take it for granted, this is not true in many other places, especially in a corporate world. Therefore, I hope the spirit of a genuine research and an excitement of the moment discovering something novel, will prevail and overcome a pragmatism of the cost/benefit analysis and the recent corporate trends in academia. As a very least – I will do my best to convince my students and post-docs to share this view. Rephrasing one of my favourite books:

“I might be only a small pebble on a way of this trend but I will do my best to at least slow it down (if not reverse)”. Is there anyone to join me on this quest?

Professor Sergey Shabala, Head, Stress Physiology Laboratory, School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania

President, Australian Society of Plant Scientists

One of the first ComBio meetings Professor Steve Tyerman attended was in Brisbane, late seventies just after completing his Honours research, where he travelled the coast with Richard Storey surfing along the way; a great way to attend a conference. At these ASPS (then ASPP) conferences Steve enjoyed meeting the scientists, putting faces to names, being able to chat, and getting to know the real characters of plant science. He says “It was nice to find out that they had other interests and hobbies like normal people…It is important to make time for other interests, in my case sailing, and my family of course. These conferences also established long term friends and mentors that have stood the test of time.”

The conferences have given him some amazing ideas from other fields, on how to carry out new experiments, help with statistics and even putting ideas together in a new synthesis. Many fruitful collaborations were also established; “I don’t think I ever said no to trying out something new to me with a new collaborator, it’s a weakness of mine”. These collaborations have sometimes developed into career long research hi-lights. The atmosphere has always been open to learning about new ways to tackle problems. One of his best papers came from ASPS and ComBio ideas. He looks back on attending conferences with fond memories, the mentoring, and researchers have always been kind when asking questions.

A mentor moment for Steve was seeing Rana Munns speak for the first time (“too long ago to put on a date”) and then being able to ask her a rather esoteric question about volumetric elastic modulus. “Never be afraid of asking questions!” One funny mistake Steve remembers of himself under the influence of pain killers and the flu, was talking obliviously; twice as long as his allocated time in a 15 min slot. He eventually, probably longer than many, managed to somewhat hone his presentations through experiences gained from ASPS conferences.

Steve believes strongly in the role of ASPS influencing researchers, students, industry and politicians. Students have to be nurtured to counter anti-science which is appearing in the general community and amongst our politicians. It is important to encourage a high level of knowledge and education in our society. An idea is to have primary and secondary teachers attending meetings so they can pass on the excitement of plant science to high school students and that “plants drive our livelihood”. Maybe then we will get more students coming to University who don’t think plants are boring.

A large chunk of Steve’s research is industry focussed, as Chair of Viticulture at the University of Adelaide. Recently his laboratory at the Waite Campus of Adelaide University, reported on how hypoxia develops in wine grape berries and that the berries “breathe” through lenticels on the berry stem, that if blocked can accelerate cell death in the berry. Implications for the Wine industry are to harvest before berry shrivel alleviating a problem where yields drop by 30 percent quickly and the high sugar concentration becomes problematic in the ferments. But now as Emeritus Professor he also looks forward to getting back to his patch-clamp rig and electrophysiology to tie up a few loose ends in basic transport research on his favourite proteins; aquaporin’s.

Professor Steve Tyerman, Chair of Viticulture at the University of Adelaide and Kathy Soole, Associate Professor Biochemistry and Biotechnology, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University

Past President (2003-2007) and President Elect respectively,  Australian Society of Plant Scientists

Kathleen (Kathy) Soole has been a member of the Australian Society of Plant Scientists since she was an Honours student and during her PhD studies at the University of Adelaide in the Botany Department, under the supervision of Prof. Joe Wiskich. Joe was a very active member of the Society during his career and encouraged his students to participate as well. He has been a major influence for Kathy throughout her career in science and through Joe and ASPS she had the honour to meet Bob Robertson, an eminent scientist and member of the Society as well as many other high profile plant scientists. It was very awe inspiring as a young student. When Joe was president, Kathy was Honorary Treasurer, a role she continued to hold for quite a few years (1998-2004). Impressively her postdoctoral research at the University of Newcastle –upon-Tyne and to this day as an Associate Professor at Flinders University, encompasses both plant and animal biochemistry. I catch her in between students for lunch in the newly refurbished Flinders University Café. This semester she is teaching Agricultural Biotechnology and she enjoys teaching as her students seem inspired.

Kathy feels very passionately about the society remaining a community where students and scientists are encouraged to take up and maintain their membership. She is proud of how the society actively fosters support for students and scientists. The society is the very basis of networking and is where we can look forward to seeing each other every year and she says “great friends have been made”.

When ComBio becomes biennial, having biennial Australian Society of Plant scientist conferences will further improve interactions between scientists and students. She envisions regional centres with lots of scientific energy will be ideal hosts. The society will also facilitate an international or national prominent scientist to talk at several meetings throughout Australia. This will provide great momentum for elevating plant science higher on national and global decision making agendas.

As a community of plant scientists we have to:

1. Communicate to the wider community to realise the looming food crisis.
2. Alleviate this crisis by delivering more efficient food.
3. Strike a balance between ecology, biodiversity and food production. There needs to be a good balance between ecological biodiversity and food production through better communication between these areas of plant biology; Kathy recently attended a presentation at Flinders earlier this year by Prof. Andrew Balmford, a renowned ecologist from the UK was speaking about the balance between ecology and agriculture and moving ahead together for the benefit of the world.
4. Educate the wider community about the benefit of plants to society, for example, try to give a balanced view about the use of genetically modified plants.
5. Be at the forefront of coping and adapting to climate change.
6. Up the numbers of members in the society.
7. Promote science as a career among young people, especially young women and show them that it is possible to have life balance and a family life.

At Flinders, Kathy has a laboratory full of students researching the role of respiration and oxidative stress in the growth of arable crops, moving beyond Arabidopsis. Recently, she has joined labs with other long-term ASPS members; Prof. David Day and Assoc. Prof. Colin Jenkins, and it has proved to be a positive experience. It has enabled an expansion of recent activities into carbohydrate metabolism and legume research.

Our President Elect is exemplified by her important, current and fascinating research. She looks forward to the up-coming meeting and speaking to students and scientists at the poster sessions in Sydney, see you soon.

Count down to 60 years of ASPS

Dear ASPS members,

with about 6 weeks until ComBio 2018, make sure you check the website for a new post to Phytogen each Monday. This beginning post has been emailed to start you off and will be on our website after that (https://www.asps.org.au/)

The posts will be :

Tuesday 14th August — The beginning

Monday 20th August — Thoughts from some of our leaders

Monday 27th August — Rewarding excellence

Monday 3rd September — Growing up within ASPS

Monday 10th September — Plants in Action

Monday 17th September — Why we need more women

we hope you will enjoy reading, hint: after this coming Monday’s post, you will be able to like on our Societies facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ASPSozplants) post a pebble if you like and that will feed through to twitter also, Kind Regards, the ASPS Website & Communications Sub-Committee (WSCS).

ASPP/ASPS  —  The beginning

We are in the process of writing a history of the Society planned for publication in 2019. This blog is a taste of the Society’s beginnings, but we are aware of gaps in our narrative.  Should anyone have other relevant information that you would be willing to share, we would be most appreciative.

Tina Offler and John Patrick, University of Newcastle

The mid-1940s onward witnessed a burgeoning growth in plant physiology research spread across CSIRO, State Departments of Agriculture and Universities. It was within this environment that Bob Robertson (to become Sir Rutherford Roberson and affectionately referred to as Sir Bob), in 1957, proposed the formation of ASPP to a group of leading national-based plant physiologists (Neales 1994). The group agreed to convene a one-day meeting linked with the programmed Adelaide Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) conference. The one-day event was held on August 19, 1958 at which 12 papers were presented by GA Atkins, Peter Brownell, Martin Canny, Jack Dainty, Alex Hope, Ned Krefford, Nick Marinos, JD McLean, John Pate, Dugald Paton, Bob Williams and Harold Woolhouse. At the inaugural General Meeting held that afternoon, chaired by Sir Bob, the ASPP Constitution was approved along with the election of Lance May (Adelaide) as Honorary Secretary, Les Paleg (Adelaide) as Honorary Treasurer and Joseph Garnett Wood (Adelaide) as the first President. There seems to be some disparity in reports of the number of delegates attending the meeting with 64 and 69 reported and the original record of attendees having 66 signatures. However, what is not in dispute is that many of the signatures on these fading sheets of paper are of those you will recognise for their significant contributions to Australian Plant Science and to our society. To name but a few: Bob Robertson, John Pate, Alan Walker, Lloyd Evans, Peter Brownell, Hal Hatch, Harold Woolhouse, Martin Canny and so it goes on and on…… 

The CSIRO/Botany School Unit, headed by Bob Robertson, and housed in the Sydney University Botany Department was the core from which ASPP grew and expanded. Bob Robertson’s group comprised a dozen or so young plant physiologists who were to make major advances in our science, including Hal Hatch, Alex Hope, Jack Dainty (from Edinburg, UK), John Pate, Carrick Chambers, Don and Heather Adamson, John (F) and Donella Turner. Bob brought 14 of its members to Adelaide for the Inaugural Meeting, and it wasn’t easy to get there!!  In his “recollections” written for the 50^th anniversary of the society, Martin Canny recounts that Hal Hatch said to me (Martin),

“Tell them how different it was, how difficult to get from Sydney to Adelaide.”

Apparently, in order to attend the Adelaide meeting he (Hal) had taken two days in trains, overnight from Sydney to Melbourne, with a midnight change at Albury to accommodate a shift in rail gauge from 4 feet 8 1/2 inches (New South Wales) to the Victorian line gauge of 5 feet 3 inches, then another overnight trip to Adelaide, with yet another change in railway gauge down to 3 feet 6 inches at the Victorian/South Australian boarder. And, there are other similar stories.

In the following year, the plant physiology community was saddened by the untimely death of JG  (Joe) Wood (1900 -1959) just prior to the second meeting of ASPP convened in Sydney across three days. Sir Bob was elected as the second ASPP President, a position he served in until 1962.  ASPP/ASPS has honoured these two foundation presidents for many years through the JG Wood and Robertson Lectures, presented by invitation biennially at ASPP/ComBio meetings in alternate years.  Also, amongst the attendees at the inaugural meeting in Adelaide was a talented young plant scientist, Dr Peter Goldacre who tragically died in 1960 before being able to fulfil his full research potential. It is in his honour that the prestigious Peter Goldacre Award has been awarded to an outstanding early career plant scientist each year since 1965.

Neales Tom (1994). Our Society; An Historical Perspective. An early history of the Australian Society of Plant Physiologists. ASPP Membership Directory and reproduced (with permission) in Phytogen 11(2), 11-18.

ComBio 2017 was the first conference I attended during my PhD studies and it was so unforgettable, as I saw the outline of the future of agriculture in this conference. I presented my poster about QTL identified on controlling photosynthetic traits in Barley, talked about the genetic research done on physiological traits. I was so happy and grateful for the valuable chance of attending Combio2017, because I learned so much there and other great scholars work has inspired me so much for my own research.
ComBio2017 was held at the new and state of the art Adelaide Convention Centre located in the heart of the city on the Torrens River, we could see the magnificent Adelaide Oval Precinct. There were eight themes including Plant Biology, Biotechnology and Sustainable Futures, Developmental, Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Proteins and Proteomics, Genomes, Epigenetics and Bioinformatics, Cell Biology, Cell Signalling and Metabolism and Education and Career Development. Every theme presented great talks.
Professor Jian-Kang Zhu’s talk on “Decoding the epigenetic language of life” has changed my understanding on drought, cold and heat, and salt stress signalling pathways and resistance mechanism. Now I understood epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation and their roles in abiotic stress resistance. Another talk was given by Professor Tim Colmer on Photosynthesis and internal aeration of submerged rice.
Thanks to ASPS funding for ComBio2017. The opportunity to attend ComBio2017 is so precious. By 2050 we are expected to have 9 billion people to inhabit the planet, consuming 70–100% more food than is currently available. Such enormous challenge is possible to concur with the collaboration of all agricultural scientists.

Si Li, PhD Student, The University of Sydney, Sydney Institute of Agriculture | School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

I am Muhammad Kamran, a PhD candidate with Professor Stephen Tyerman’s Group at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. Recently, I submitted my thesis for examination. My PhD project has focused on understanding the tolerance of wheat to high pH stress, a condition that affects about a third of Australia’s and the world’s agricultural soils. I had the opportunity to present some of my PhD work at COMBIO 2017 Adelaide. My research was recognised with an Australian Society of Plant Scientists (ASPS) student poster award. Being an ECR, I was very delighted with my research recognition through this award as it provided me with a significant boost and encouragement to continue my career as a plant scientist.
COMBIO 2017 provided me with a great opportunity to present and receive quality feedback on my work. I displayed my poster for three days which provided great exposure of my work. I also benefited from face to face interactions with other fellow researchers which resulted in establishing networks, finding future directions and subsequent collaborations. Plenary lectures were really awesome and informative. It’s very important to get up to date in my research area. Attending COMBIO 2017 provided the opportunity to be updated, get wide research exposure, exchange of ideas and learn about new things.
Being an elected student representative of ASPS, I helped to organise the formal society dinner. It was an awesome experience which helped me to build new contacts. I am incredibly grateful to the ASPS for awarding me the ASPS student poster prize and feel privileged to be an ASPS member.

Muhammad Kamran, PhD candidate at University of Adelaide, Australia.

Combio-2017, the best conference so far I have attended in my academic career. I attended the combio-2017 just two and half months after starting my PhD. I presented a poster highlighting initial findings in my first experiment on developmental expression profiling of ammonium transporters in soybean nodules. I was very excited with my work and to be honest a bit worried as well about my poster with a feeling that I may get tough questions from top academics. However it was unbelievably encouraging when a field related renowned academic like Prof. Steve Tyerman came to see my poster and said “probably this is the gene we have been looking for a long time.” I just couldn’t believe that, wow!
Combio-2017 was a massive conference with eight themes and incorporated three society’s annual meetings. It’s really great to see scientists and academics from different backgrounds under one roof. There was coherence within the themes and I realised we really need scientists from different backgrounds at the same time to step forward in science. I was very lucky to get a travel grant by ASPS without which I couldn’t make it. There were too many sessions I wanted to join and unfortunately not all were possible. Some worth mentioning were calcium transporter by Wang, Aquaporin gene expression by Scharwies, sugar transporter by Rautangarten, Arabidopsis ion transporter CCC by Wege. Lectures related to my PhD research plan like fluorescent microscopy by Gormal, nutrient exchange in mycorrhizal symbioses by Plett, and grain nitrogen filling by Julie were impressive.
ASPS goldacre award lecture by Asso. Prof. Plett headlining “Tuning into rhizosphere radio” and plenary lecture by gene editing genius Prof. Zhu were just mind blowing. I was interested in gene editing and gained a lot of information from the lectures by Zhu, CRISPR-Cas delivery by Rouet, gene editing in cereals by Luo, and genome editing in nicotiana by Naim. There was a lot of information presented in poster sessions while poster teasers were marvellous.
To me, Combio-2017 was not just a conference, its way more than that. I met many scientific companies whose chemicals I use often. I was very fortunate to see people with whom I had several email conversations. I met employers who were interested in my work, cost free generous offer for plasmid sequencing from a sequencing company was more than my imagination.
Combio-2017 was a big scientific community gathering for the students of plant science. No doubt, as a community it’s having a big impact in spreading our innovation and creating opportunities for future scientists. I am really looking forward to attending Combio-2018 with more results and meet all those people whose work I am continuously following. I am really grateful to ASPS for awarding me the travel grant. Thank you very much.

Muhammad Kamal Uddin, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Science I School of Life and Environmental Science, THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, Centre for Carbon Water and Food (CCWF)

Biotechnology has always fascinated me for being able to modify the crops for a sustainable agricultural production using foreign genes. After finishing my major in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (2013) from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, I started applying for PhD positions in Australia to follow my dream to pursue higher studies in plant science. I was privileged to start my PhD in 2015 in the faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural sciences, The University of Melbourne under the guidance of Professor Dr. Paul Taylor and Associate Professor Dr. Derek Russell on canola biotechnology.

Canola, being the second most important oilseed crop in the world and Australia being an important producer, my study focusses on the use of new genes to alleviate abiotic and biotic stresses in canola. I started developing and optimising the tissue culture based gene transformation of canola using rapid-cycling Brassica napus as the model system and used the developed techniques to introduce traits of interests for farmers such as tolerance to frost and diseases.

In 2017, I joined the Australian society for plant scientists (ASPS), a useful society in Australia which helps young scientists to connect, publish and choose career pathways. I was fortunate to win a travel award from ASPS to attend ComBio 2017 held in the convention centre, Adelaide to present some of my research findings. It was a good opportunity to hear from other researchers around the world and to get to know researchers with similar research interests.

Aruni Alahakoon, Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, University of Melbourne

All plants are subject to diseases caused by different pathogens which can affect food security. Among all these plant pathogens, rust fungi are specialized to different economically important crops such as wheat and barley and can cause substantial crop failure. Due to the increase in human population and emergence of new virulent races of rust pathogen, the identification of new durable sources of resistance is crucial for future crop protection and food security. Therefore, my PhD project involves determination of the genetic and molecular basis of resistance in barley in response to cereal rust pathogens (Puccinia rust pathogens). My work includes resistance gene identification in response to diverse rust pathogens in selected mapping barley populations, subsequent fine mapping analysis with an ultimate aim to discover novel resistance sources in barley that are effective to rust pathogens and can be transferred into other crops.

The ASPS travel grant fund enabled me to attend the COMBIO conference 2017 in Adelaide which was a critical juncture for my professional development. This conference was a great opportunity to present my research to a wide range of experts and research groups in plant science. I had the opportunity to present a major component of my PhD project, which enabled me to improve my oral presentation skills, receive feedback and develop network with scholars within the Australian plant scientific community. The improved results based on the presented work has been published in Phytopathology Journal in May 2018.

Rouja Haghdoust, PhD student, Plant Breeding Institute, The University of Sydney

My name is Yoav Yichie and I’m a PhD candidate from The University of Sydney. I am in the third year of my candidature, and I’m focusing on the vast genetic diversity of endemic Australian rice species, particularly O. australiensis and O. meridionalis. In my research I deal with one of the most critical issues related to climate change and land management: soil salinity. Salinity affects a significant proportion of arable land globally, and is particularly detrimental for irrigated agriculture, which provides approximately one-third of the world’s food supply. Millions of hectares are technically suited for rice production but are left uncultivated, or give very low yields, because of soil salinity.

There is now a burgeoning interest in native rice species as a source of abiotic stress tolerance genes; however, to date, no work has been published on their salt tolerance.

In my research I use the genetic pool stored in wild relatives of crop species to enrich the genetic diversity and provide improved traits to commercial rice varieties.

Last year I presented some of my research findings at COMBIO 2017, Adelaide. I had the opportunity to discuss my research with some of the most well-known researchers in this field. I met many colleagues and expanded my scientific network. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to share my knowledge and obtain feedback and insights from other researchers from around the globe. I was awarded for the Best Phenotyping Poster by the APPF Plant Phenomics. I wish to gratefully acknowledge the APPF committee who awarded me the poster prize.

I was granted financial assistance to attend and present this poster at ComBio 2017. In this poster, I highlighted the main results of the salt screening experiments, where I managed to establish a core collection of salt-sensitive and tolerant accessions.

Participating in ComBio 2017 was a great experience for me. Firstly, I would like to thank the committee for providing a grant travel that gave me that opportunity. As part of the three-day conference, I attended meetings related to plant development, physiology, technology and abiotic stress. The talks (and the great speakers) enabled me to enrich my knowledge and broaden my understanding of these fields. Moreover, by presenting my poster entitled “High-throughput non-invasive phenotyping reveals salinity tolerance in Australian wild rice species during seedling growth”, I had the chance to obtain feedback and consult with researchers from many disciplines. This experience provided a platform for some useful discussions which will help to strengthen parts of my thesis as well as highlight areas needing further work.

I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and think it was a great opportunity for me at this early stage in my career as a researcher. Networking with scientists from diverse backgrounds and interest has reignited my passion and enthusiasm for science and particularly plant genetics research. I would like to thank The Australian Society of Plant Scientists for awarding me the grant which made my attendance possible.

Yoav Yichie, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney

I am Chana Borjigin, a 3^rd year PhD student from the University of Adelaide. I grew up on a small farm where I always had a close relationship with different cereal crops like maize, rice, wheat and beans. Following my father to inspect the crops on the farm after school brought so much fun to my childhood life. I started my bachelor’s studies in plant sciences (in the specialization of agriculture sciences) in 2006, and never thought to work or study in any other field in the past 12 years as plants to me is like my beloved pets and I like being with them.

My PhD research is on understanding sodium tissue tolerance in a bread wheat landrace Mocho de Espiga Branca. My poster entitled Identification of Novel Loci and Genes for Salinity Tissue Tolerance in a Bread Wheat Landrace Mocho de Espiga Branca was awarded the ASPS Student Poster Prize at the ComBio 2017 held in Adelaide. I am thankful for ASPS Committee for awarding me the prize. It is the first prize I have ever been awarded in my PhD life and is definitely going to be a great encouragement on continuing my research in plant sciences. Participating and presenting at the ComBio 2017 offered me with a great opportunity to present my research work in front of experts and peers in plant sciences to get constructive comments and exchange ideas. By attending the conference, I was also able to build up potential collaborating networks for my current research, and with a couple of scientists we already have started our collaboration on a part of my PhD project.

I am grateful for being a member of ASPS and looking forward to meeting with all other members again and update my recent research progress at the ComBio 2018 in Sydney!

Chana Borjigin, PhD Candidate, School of Agriculture, Food and Wine, University of Adelaide

As recipient of the ASPS travelling fellowship I was given the opportunity to travel to Heidelberg, Germany, famous for its numerous scientific institutes as well as the beautiful scenery. My PhD project in the Gendall lab at La Trobe University involved studying the importance of a class of Na⁺/H⁺ exchanger proteins or NHXs in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana. These proteins localise to the membrane of various vesicles in the cell which are responsible for the sorting and recycling of cellular cargo proteins. My work in Australia studying these vesicles involved light microscopy studies which are not capable of resolving the structure of these vesicles I am interested in.

Through the generous funding of the ASPS I was able to visit the lab of Prof. Karin Schumacher who is one of the leaders in the plant cell biology field, and whose lab has great experience in using electron microscopy to resolve the ultrastructure of these membrane bound vesicles. After learning how to prepare my plant root samples for imaging under the electron microscopy with guidance from Dr. Stefan Hillmer, we were able to obtain strikingly clear images of a type of cellular vesicle called multi-vesicular bodies (see Figure). I am currently analysing these results to determine if the formation or maturation of these vesicles could be disrupted in plant cells which lack particular NHX proteins. I am grateful to the ASPS for providing me the opportunity to learn valuable skills and techniques overseas which I would not be able to achieve in Australia.

Transmission electron microscopy image of an enlarged multi-vesicular body (white structure) in an Arabidopsis thaliana root cell. The numerous dark structures contained in the multi-vesicular body are intra-luminal vesicles which contain cargo proteins destined to be degraded. Scale bar = 500nm.

Jonathan Dragwidge, PhD candidate, La Trobe University

Here are Chenchen and Mainul writing about ComBio2017. Hope you manage to get your applications in C.O.B. today for ComBio2018.

An understanding of the mechanisms which have evolved to allow plants to tolerate drought are crucial to the development of crops which can be productive in adverse climatic conditions.
My PhD project focuses on a retrograde signalling pathway, (3’ –phosphoadenosine 5’-phosphate, PAP), which regulates plant stomatal activity and therefore helps plants to tolerate drought. I am looking at this signalling pathway with an evolutionary perspective and trying to understand the mechanism that has evolved as plants conquered the land during evolution, this process can be also regarded as the first development of adaptations to drought.
If similar mechanisms can be exploited in crop breeding, higher crop yields can be achieved under unfavourable environmental conditions such as drought.
I have used a wide range of techniques in my research including bioinformatics, electro-physiology and genetics. Some of these results were presented on my poster at ComBio-2017. I am grateful that this poster was chosen as the winning student poster by ASPS, and this has also allowed more people to become familiar with my research.
ComBio-2017 was an awesome occasion for researchers. It opened my eyes to new and exciting research and also gave me a chance to meet other researchers in my field. During the poster presentation, ideas and knowledge were exchanged and this has helped me to explore further aspects in my project. I am a proud member of ASPS and am looking forward to participating in future conferences.

Chenchen Zhao, PhD student in School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University

Plants are the most trustworthy friends for mankind. They are equipped with an internal system that can exploit sunlight, water and carbon dioxide being exhaled by humans in order to generate carbohydrate and oxygen which in turn is inhaled by humans. Thus, plants act as primary food producers and play a key role for survival of all other living organisms in the ecosystem. As our global population is rising consistently and expected to reach 9.7 billion from the current 7.3 billion, plant scientists, especially those working with crops face a significant challenge in order to meet this high demand of food and fodder. As different traits such as yield output in plants are regulated by genes, therefore plant scientists are constantly innovating molecular genetics based strategies to tackle this situation. Due to this aspect, I have chosen to pursue a career in plant science.
The Australian Society of Plant Scientists (ASPS) is a community which is contributing towards the aforementioned crisis at the national and international level. Scientists of this organization include some of the leading members in their respective fields whose entire life is dedicated towards unveiling solutions for feeding the hungry mouths around the world. The travel grant offered to me by ASPS for attending Combio 2017 conference at the Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide was a significant boost for a young early career scientist like myself because I could present a poster about my PhD research work on flowering time regulation in garden pea which is relevant for yield outcome, and thus received constructive feedbacks from some of the experts in the field. Likewise, I learned the skill of presenting the work of my entire thesis within two minutes by participating in a poster teaser session. Besides, I gained much needed knowledge about the research work being conducted by some of my peers as well as senior members of the society to address various burning issues such as improving different yield parameters, biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, symbiotic relationship development with friendly microbes and so on. Moreover, I was able to network with other PhD students and other scientists specifically by attending the conference dinner where the president of the society, Professor Sergey Shabala gave us an overview about the current status of ASPS in comparison to some major countries and some of the key responsibilities that ASPS members need to carry out to take the organization to an even higher level.
Overall, attending this conference assisted me to become a better professional which would in turn help me to develop myself as a future leader in this field, and thereby disseminate my knowledge among the next generation of plant scientists who can then take up the baton to deal with global food security.

A S M Mainul Hasan, PhD student in School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania

Hope you manage to reflect on your efforts this coming World Environment Day, Tuesday 5th June 2018.

This years theme is Beat Plastic Pollution.

PLANT NUTRITION TRUST REPORT

by

Wenli Ding

University of Western Australia

It was really an honour to be awarded the Plant Nutrition Trust Award. I attended the International Plant Nutrition Colloquium from 21^st to 24^th August 2017 in Copenhagen. I have to say, this was really a professionally rewarding experience.

As an international conference, there were lots of interesting talks, especially those from the keynote speakers. The speakers not only informed us of what has been studied in the research areas, but also speculated about new developments for the future. I gained new insights into research experimentation, which can be hard to obtain through reading papers. For example, how to use X-ray fluorescence microscopy to get the plant nutrient distribution in plant tissues. As a young researcher, this was really an eye-opening opportunity for me.

The conference was definitely a great chance to socialise with researchers from all over the world. I tried to introduce myself to some professors after their talks or during the conference breaks. We discussed their research and outlined connections to my own research investigations. This provide me with ideas to help advance my own research. In particular, one professor showed genunine interest in offering me a postdoc position. Attending academic conferences is a great way for young researches to build academic connections and invaluable experience.

Most importantly, I presented a poster at this conference, and gave a 3-min talk in the speaking corner about what I discovered and what I propose to do in the future. Even though it is not the same as giving a seminar in the big hall, I did advance my speaking skills and answering people’s questions was a good challenge.  I also learned more about my own research through explaining areas of my research that were confusing to others and listening to their invaluable suggestions.

In summary, I acquired genuine new knowledge related to my research area and developed new relationships with key professors in the area of plant nutrition. I have also learned how to explain myself and convince others of my research ideas and findings. These experiences were most definitely helpful in advancing my own research career. Finally, I want to say thank the Plant Nutrition Trust committee, for giving me the chance to use the funds and attend such an amazing conference.

Contact: Wenli Ding

PLANT NUTRITION TRUST REPORT

by

Feifei Wang

School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania

I am honored to receive Plant Nutrition funding support to attend the 19^th International Botanical Congress (IBC) in China. The conference was hold in Shenzhen during July 23^rdto 29^th, 2017, under the auspices of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), through the International Association of Botanical and Mycological Societies (IABMS) of the IUBS. Many world’s top experts present their exciting new findings in major plenary sessions and in a wide array of symposia. During the conference, I made one oral presentation named “Oxygen sensing in plant roots linked with ion channel operation: Revealing the roles of calcium transporters in response to hypoxia and salinity in Arabidopsis” in “Calcium transport and signaling” symposium on Friday, 28^thJuly. After my presentation, many questions were asked about the possibility and potential role of TPC1 channel as oxygen sensor in plant. We also talked about the TPC1 function under combined hypoxia and salinity stress. One conference paper was published on line after this conference, and I also gained some new knowledge and skills through this conference.

Finally, thanks for giving me this chance to the conference. I really appreciate that. It indeed improved my research ability and profiled my research project. Thanks again.

Contact: Feifei Wang

PLANT NUTRITION TRUST REPORT

by

David Minemba

University of Western Australia

Introduction

As recipient of The Plant Nutrition Trust Award, I visited LSU AgCenter and its Sweet Potato Research Station in Chase, Manroe. It also coincided with the Annual International Meeting of America Society of Agronomy, America Society of Soil Science and Crop Science Society of America and I attended as a member at Tampa Convention Centre, Florida.

LSU AgCenter, Sweet Potato Research Station conducts pioneering research on role of phosphorus on sweet potato root structure and architecture. This work compliments my PhD research project aimed at understanding root rhizosphere properties of sweet potato in low Phosphate soils.  I also attended the meeting in Tampa purposely to meet and network with other international researchers who are involved in related studies to my PhD research project. I met many graduate students working on fields related to root rhizosphere as well as functions of microbial community that exists in the soil.

This report highlight activities and contact made with other researchers on this trip.

Sweet Potato Research Station in Chase, Monroe

The LSU AgCenter Sweet Potato Research Station in Chase is devoted mainly to sweet potato research and development in the United States of America. Its mission is to produce and supply high quality seed stock to commercial sweet potato growers and conduct research in various disciplines to support the industry in the country. Some of the commercial sweet potato varieties used around the world, including Beauregard were developed from LSU AgCenter.

Research into understanding the root system architecture and role of external soil nutrients on root development and storage root formation of sweet potato conducted at AgCenter is at very advanced stages. Variability in storage root yield of sweet potato is quite common in every country that grow sweet potato and remains a challenge. Understanding the root rhizosphere properties could potentially explain this variability and is the focus of my PhD research project. The pioneering work on sweet potato root system architecture at LSU AgCenter by Prof Villordon compliments research interest and was the main basis of many productive interaction during my visit.

LSU, AgCentre

The AgCenter at Louisiana State University hosts a wide range of disciplines in agriculture. One is the plant pathology section. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Dr Chris Clark, a plant pathologist involved mostly in sweet potato pathogens. Dr Clark has many year of experience and has documented most sweet potato pathogens known in the USA and elsewhere. I also had useful conversations with Mrs Mary Hoy, a tissue culture specialist who manages supply of tissue cultured plantlets to the clean seed supply system.

Dr Clark and I had conversations on the potential role of root exudates and its interactions with microbial community in the soil and its effect on soil borne pathogens of sweet potato. My study on measuring the root exudates and the microbial community could potentially contribute to understanding the effects of microbial agents on soil borne pathogens of sweet potato.

The Conference in Tampa, Florida

The American Society of Agronomy, crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America had their 2017 Annual International Meeting with the theme “Managing Global Resources for a Secure Future” in Tampa, Florida. I attended that meeting as recommended by Prof Arthur Villordon, who is my co supervisor, as it is a good opportunity to meet and network with scientist and resource people around the world.

Perceived benefits from my travel and visitations

Confirming the knowledge gap and building confidence

The discussion I had with Dr Villordon, who published widely on topics related to the role of phosphorus on sweet potato root system and architecture, indicated that my research on understanding the rhizosphere properties of sweet potato will certainly add value to knowledge gap needed to resolved persistent variability in storage root yield of sweet potato known to exist in many countries. This also gave the confidence that my work has relevance and a source of inspiration to complete well my remaining experiments and successfully complete my PhD study.

Identified potential collaborations

My visit to LSU AgCenter also stimulated discussions on collaboration work as an extension to my PhD research project. Dr Villordon has offered to provide his expertise as best as he could from his experience elsewhere on projects similar to the proposed collaborations.

I also had cross discipline discussions with Dr Chris Clark, a sweet potato disease specialist. He has an opinion that the root exudates and microbial community in the root rhizosphere could potentially suppress effects of soil borne pathogens of sweet potato. My next experiment has an object to unveil the microbiome in the root rhizosphere of sweet potato cultivars at different P rates. Hope a potential candidate microbial agent be identified from this work and hopefully that could further developed into a collaborative partnership.

Improved on a research technique

I had issues in establishing a good Phosphate response curve in my experimentation. I can now improve on that from tips I learned from Dr Villordon. He demonstrated that very contrasting P response can be achieved by establishing sweet potato from zero P medium to drain out the P reserves in the stem cutting and shoots before transplanting in trials pots. This will greatly assist in developing very contrasting response difference needed for my next experiment.

Collection of relevant literature and publications

Dr Villordon had a more updated collection of literature on sweet potato research in the world. He provided me the copy and that will greatly add value to improving my literature review section of my thesis.

I made good contact with resource people

At the Annual International Meeting in Tampa, I made a good number of contacts with graduate researchers and specialist in areas related to my research work. We exchanged contact information and I look forward to make contact with them during the cause of my study and beyond.

Acknowledgements

This productive trip would not have been possible without the funding support from Plant Nutrition Trust Award and I am grateful to Dr Peter Ryan and his team for this funding opportunity. I also acknowledge the support from UWA Graduate Research School.

My supervisors Associate Prof. Megan Ryan and Prof. Arthur Villordon have not only suggested for me to take trip but have given me all the support needed to make this trip to the United States very successful. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was truly a fulfilling experience in my PhD journey. I had pleasant interactions with Dr Chris Clark and Mrs Mary Hoy at LSU AgCenter. They allowed me to appreciate sweet potato disease in relation my research focus and also gave me the opportunity to visit LSU Rural Life Museum. Finally, the hospitability I got from Ms Susan Karimiha at Baton Rouge and Prof Arthur and family at Manroe were second to none for which I am very thankful.

Contact: David Minemba

PLANT NUTRITION TRUST REPORT

by

Cui Li

I am honoured to be one of the recipients of The 2017 Plant Nutrition Trust Award, granted by Australian Society of Plant Scientists. Thanks to this generous support, I attended my very first International Plant Nutrition Colloquium (IPNC), combined with Boron and Manganese satellite meetings, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 19 to 24 August 2017.

I am a third year PhD student from School of Agriculture and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane. My study area is on the absorption and translocation of foliar-applied nutrient fertilizers. The IPNC was the best conference that I have attended. Not only because the topic of the conference suited my study area, but also because it inspired through high quality of seminars and and poster presentations. This was especially true for the keynote presentations, which were given by world-leading scientists within the field.

The main theme of the 18th IPNC was: “Plant Nutrition for Global Green Growth”. Indeed, the conference involved presentations on macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and calcium, and micronutrients such as zinc, manganese, and boron. Furthermore, a range of plant species were considered, from arabidopsis and rapeseed to wheat and rice, with the focus of the research also being diverse, from nutrient transporters to next generation fertilisers. For example, I particularly enjoyed the keynote presentation given by Marta Vasconcelos titled “Impact of climate change on plant nutrition” which illustrated the effects of increasing atmospheric CO₂ on crop growth and nutrient status. This presentation encouraged me to think of the study of plant nutrition at a more interdisciplinary level – not only should we study the relationship between plants and nutrients, but also we should consider the effects of other factors on plant nutrition such as the changing climate, the succession of nutrients in soil agriculture system, and the increasing human population as well as decreasing land area. I also enjoyed the presentation by Jianfeng Ma titled “Molecular mechanisms for distribution of mineral elements in plants” which was inspiring in that it clearly explained how nutrients are allocated and transported within plants, giving consideration to symptoms we can see using our naked eye to the underlying physiology and molecular mechanisms. I also benefited a lot from the keynote presentations by Peter Kopittke and Søren Husted which shared new analytical methods and techniques can be used in the field of plant nutrition with clear examples.

On the 22^nd August, I gave an oral presentation about my PhD research, entitled “Understanding how foliar-applied Zn fertilizer moves across the leaf surface in sunflower and soybean”. A particular focus of my presentation was describing a novel role for trichomes in the absorption of foliar-applied nutrients. My research drew the attention of Victoria Fernandez who is a well-known scientist in the field of foliar fertilisation and who also a keynote speaker at the IPNC. We had a lengthy discussion with interest, and she insightful suggestions. Most importantly, she expressed her interest to collaborate in the future, with this being an important achievement for me at this conference. There were also others who presented their work within the topic of foliar fertilisation. These presentations provided an overview of the current studies and showed that the mechanisms of foliar nutrients absorption and translocation are still not fully understood. It is also interesting that it was found that foliar fertilisation is often not helpful for plants that are already severely nutrient stressed, thus it is important to develop methods that can recognise plant nutrients deficiency at the early stages. The photo shows Victoria Fernandez (right side) and myself.

I truly appreciated the generosity and support of the Plant Nutrition Trust Travel Awards. I have gained knowledge, expanded my horizons, and met face-to-face with researchers from all over the world in the field of plant nutrition. Moreover, it has firmed my determination to continue as a researcher within the field of plant nutrition!

Contact: Cui Li