Earlier this year, I visited the Centre’s University of Queensland Node, where I brainstormed with members of the Centre – especially Professor and Chief Investigator, Daniel Ortiz-Barrientos – about how evolutionary approaches could aid in crop adaptation to climate change. These discussions led to a review that recently appeared in Molecular Plant. The disciplines of evolutionary biology and plant and
This is my fourth Centre of Excellence (CoE). The previous ones were in complex systems, bioinformatics, big data and modelling, and now plant systems. They have all been very different. The most important issue that I have learnt is that being in a CoE is hard, and it should be hard. We all have an obligation to take the time
The Centre held its third annual Research Retreat and second annual Early Career Researcher (ECR) Workshop in Cairns last week with 108 and 74 in-person attendees respectively. It was great to hear from so many of our Centre Members on their recent research achievements and discuss future directions. The Research Retreat began with a Welcome to Country from the Minjil group who
There is much interest in the new generation Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, including ChatGPT. In part, such platforms are designed to mimic or reproduce human “conversations” including scientific discussion, with functionality stretching to writing and debugging computer code. Without a doubt these new platforms will change the scientific landscape, but will scientists and researchers become redundant? Will future scientists need
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture is pleased to share our 2022 Annual Report with you. The report outlines more information about our Centre, research, community, and performance in 2022. As those who have been subscribed to this newsletter for a while would know, 2022 was a jam-packed year for the Centre that saw us recruit lots of new members, host,
30 Centre members from The University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology, Western Sydney University, and the University of Tasmania had the pleasure of visiting colleagues at the Hermitage Research Facility in Warwick this month. Chief Investigator David Jordan and Associate Investigator Emma Mace put together a thorough agenda including research presentations, field visits, and equipment demonstrations from the Hermitage team. When asked about the trip, attendees
The Centre has hit the ground running in 2023 with plenty of research activity, collaborations, travel, and events underway. I have been particularly enjoying seeing all the action happening in the fields of the Hermitage Research Facility by Chief Investigator David Jordan‘s team. The sorghum trials are coming along and we are thankfully in a very different place to the flood events that were occurring this
After Chairing the Centre’s Advisory Committee (CAC) over the past couple of years it is timely for me to reflect on some of our meeting outcomes. Committee members were invited onto the CAC because of their experience in government, industry, community and indigenous affairs, as well as research and academic leadership. Importantly, we also have welcomed a Centre Early Career Researcher (ECR)
As of today, the Centre for Plant Success has been up and running for two years! It feels like just yesterday that I received the confirmation that the Centre had been funded, but when I look at all we have achieved since then I can see that we are well on our way to some truly exciting advancements in plant
As a tail-end contributor, it’s tempting to act on the advice of Nobel Prize winner André Gide (pronounced Geed, not G’day): “Everything that needs to be said has already been said, but since no one was listening, everything must be said again”. Although probably good counsel, you’ll be happy to read that I’ll try not to do this. With the end of
