Welcome letter February 2017

Dear Members of the International Society of Root Research,

We would like to welcome you to our new web site and our first ISRR newsletter, designed to stimulate global communication and advancement of plant root science. The ISRR is the largest international root research society with 359 members residing in 54 different countries, as of January 2017 (see graph below).  

In December of 2016, the hosting of the ISRR website transferred to the Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany, with ISRR Executive Secretary Prof. Michelle Watt and her colleagues, after residing in excellent hands with the James Hutton Institute (previously Scottish Crop Research Institute), Scotland, with Prof. Glyn Bengough and his team.
The design of the website has been renewed, maintaining the general spirit and content. We welcome feedback from users around how it can be expanded and enhanced. The website is still and will continue to be accessible at www.rootresearch.org.

The function of the website has been in the past designed to give information about upcoming ISRR meetings (the next one will be in Israel in 2018). In the future we plan to use it to broaden the activities of the ISRR, and to help the society to connect root researchers world-wide. 
To achieve more active communication, a quarterly newsletter will be circulated to all members – this being the first one.
If you would like to announce something or give feedback to the newsletter or the web site, please write an email to the official address (isrr@fz-juelich.de). Of course you can also retract your agreement to receiving this e-bulletin in the future.

Some interesting meetings upcoming in the first half of 2017:

Rooting 2017 in Umea, Sweden               from 29 May - 1 June 2017
http://rooting2017.upsc.se/

IPG 2017 in Missouri, USA from 7-9 June 2017
https://ipg.missouri.edu/symposium/

Manuscripts:

Our first contribution from an ISRR member to share among the community is a paper about machine learning for improved root phenotyping:
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2016.01864

Technology:

OpenSimRoot, a 3D architectural plant model for simulating root growth over time in dependence of soil conditions, is now available (www.rootresearch.org and http://rootmodels.gitlab.io/).

Others:

In order to strengthen communication within the root community we are currently working on a twitter account for the ISRR in cooperation with Root Phenotyping community of the IPPN (International plant phenotyping network) for up-to-date news.

Kind regards and a wonderful 2017,

Prof. Michelle Watt and Dr. Josefine Nestler,

on behalf of the ISRR President Prof. Peter Gregory and the ISRR Executive