National Science Week was this month, and many STEM professionals found ourselves communicating our research to the public. Our communication can be direct, such as public presentations and school activities, but it can also be indirect, explaining our research to professional science communicators. These communicators include journalists, science writers, and increasingly, podcast hosts and influencers. These communicators talk to us and
What happens when researchers are challenged to communicate their work through art, humour and photography? The inaugural Creative Communication Competition set out to answer this question as part of National Science Week 2026; bringing together researchers and staff from nine ARC Centres of Excellence for a fun, friendly competition to communicate research in accessible, engaging and unexpected ways. Participants could
When planning a plant experiment, one of the most important decisions is made before any data are collected: what should we measure? The value of an experiment depends not only on how much data are collected, but also on selecting the types of measurements that are most informative for addressing the research question. Mathematical models connect plant biology with data.
Last week we held the 2026 Plant Success Research Retreat and Capacity Building Workshops in Kingscliff. This was the fifth in-person Retreat (we did hold one online in 2021 during COVID-19, but I am sure we would all rather forget that period). The Retreats provide a rare opportunity to step away from our day-to-day demands and immerse ourselves in all things Plant
High-quality experiments conducted by the Centre for Plant Success require state-of-the-art facilities, such as the Plant Futures Facility (PFF) at The University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus. So, what is hidden behind that award-winning brick wall? And how can this facility support the Centre? The PFF operates like a hotel for plants, although some users might rather consider it a
Sorghum farmers in drier regions face a subtle problem. When water is limited, the standard approach is to space plants further apart, so each one has more soil moisture. The difficulty is that sorghum plants with extra space respond by producing more shoot branches, known as tillers. Those extra tillers use water early in the season, before grain filling, and
Every gram of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser comes at a cost of energy, money, and carbon emissions. Over the past 50 years, this natural process has been overshadowed by industrial production and use of industrial fertilisers, which have become essential for food security but undermine environment and human health. There is a pressing need to explore more sustainable solutions that can
Plant Success and the Training Centre for Predictive Breeding hosted a week of soybean collaborative project meetings in Brisbane earlier this month, bringing together teams from BASF, Iowa State University (ISU), and QAAFI. A central objective of this collaboration is to tackle Genotype x Environment x Management (GxExM) interactions in soybean – a complex challenge that demands coordinated expertise across modelling, physiology, genomics, and breeding. The meetings
John Bowman grew up in Montana and later during secondary school Illinois, obtaining a BS degree in biochemistry from the University of Illinois in 1986. During his PhD studies with Elliot Meyerowitz at the California Institute of Technology (1986–1991), he studied the genetic basis of flower development in the model flowering plant Arabidopsis. He continued to study aspects of flower
