2025 Australasian Seed Science Conference
Seeding Connection: Bridging knowledge, policy and practice across agriculture and conservation
Thanks for attending ASSC25
On behalf of the Organising and Program Committees, thank you for sowing the seeds of success at the Australasian Seed Science Conference in Horsham, Victoria. Your participation helped cultivate a vibrant exchange of ideas, and we’re grateful to everyone who gave their time and energy into making this event flourish. A special thanks goes to our program speakers and chairpersons, whose insights helped germinate new ideas, and to our sponsors and exhibitors, whose support was the fertile ground beneath it all.
Hosted by the Australian Seed Bank Partnership and the Australian Grains Genebank, the ASSC2025 was a leading conference exploring research and innovation across the agricultural and biodiversity conservation sectors. This conference provided a platform for Australasian seed researchers, industries, policymakers, and communities to promote research, insights, technologies, and exchange ideas on how we can address similar scientific, legal and policy challenges. Our collective efforts saw us welcome over 170 delegates to Horsham, including 30 Traditional Owners and First Nations organisation delegates, 9 delegates from the Asia- Pacific, as well as 30 students and EMCR’s.
We can’t wait to see you at the next one!
Dr Kathryn Eyles and Dr Sally Norton
Organising Committee Co-Chairs
Presented by
Themes
The theme for this conference was “Seeding Connection: Bridging knowledge, policy and practice across Agriculture and Conservation”.
Our conference centred around four sub-themes that have been designed to capture the international, national and regional knowledge across seed science research, policy, management practice, and use of genetic resources that encapsulate the impacts of climate change, technological advancements, legal frameworks, and partnerships for agricultural and environmental sustainability.
Seeds in culture and society
Exploring Indigenous perspectives, initiatives and enterprises; collaboration through partnerships; and protocols, legal frameworks and policies related to the conservation, restoration, collection, distribution and use of native biodiversity for food, agriculture and forestry.
Seed sourcing and end use
Exploring what factors affect seed sourcing and supply, and how advances in technologies and targeted strategies can maximise genetic diversity and guide applications in biodiversity conservation, restoration and grain crop production.
Seed biology and ecology
Exploring research, including the use of technologies, that provide insights into genetic diversity, seed storage behaviour, germination strategies and biological function of genetic resources to better understand seed ecology, seed microbiome, ‘difficult to germinate’ species, plant population dynamics and adaptation to advance agricultural productivity, restoration and conservation sectors.
Seed and gene bank management
Exploring how innovations, genomic and digital technologies, and data systems, methods and practices are being used to bank orthodox and non-orthodox taxa, improve seed quality and longevity, understand genetic diversity, and increase the utility of international, national and community gene banks for biodiversity conservation, agricultural crop improvement, and forestry applications.
Keynote Speakers
Dr Aisyah Faruk
Opening session
Mr Jacob Birch
Seeds in culture and society theme
Dr Paul Gibson-Roy
Seeds sourcing and end use theme
Prof Mathew G. Lewsey
Seed biology and ecology theme
Dr Fiona Hay
Seed & gene bank management theme
Resources
Explore our conference materials below, and stay tuned for special issue publications in the near future.
See what we had on offer
Our speakers research
Download images
Sponsorship opportunities
We also showcased a range of posters, explore the titles below
| Mitch Korda | Learning to connect Country and People at the National Seed Bank |
| Bradley Desmond | Seeding Success: Community Collaboration For Plant Conservation |
| Danielle Dexter | Biocultural Heritage And Potential Applications Of Castanospermum australe (fabaceae): An Ethnobotanical Review |
| Charlotte Lawrence | Accelerating And Broadening Seed Conservation Training To Face The Global Biodiversity Crisis |
| Alice Hudson | Biocultural Heritage Data: Steps Towards New Approaches At The Millennium Seed Bank |
| Bob Makinson | Looming Bottlenecks In Ex Situ Conservation: Why We Need To Think Bigger‒examples From Myrtle Rust And Other Trending Priorities |
| Emily Sutcliffe | Using seed for restoration in ACT Offsets |
| Mitchell Livingston | Grounded in Community: Making Provenance Seed Sourcing Work at Scale |
| Emma Dalziell | Ex-situ Seed Longevity And The Germination Niche Of Seeds From Western Australia’s Wet-dry Tropics |
| Emma Dalziell | Assessing The Storage Potential Of Seed Collections To Inform The Management Of Wild Species Seed Banks |
| Emma Dalziell | Changes In Whole-seed Respiration During Seed Aging – A Useful Measure Of Seed Viability And A Predictor Of Longevity? |
| Lauren Murfit | Seed Biology And Ex Situ Conservation Of Western Australian Myrtaceae For Myrtle Rust (Austropuccinia psidii) Preparedness |
| Emily Kemp | Relationship Between Embryo Morphology And Germination Characteristics In Selected Endemic & Threatened Species In Australia: Preliminary Findings |
| Candice Farrugia-Roberts | Optimising Lab-based Germination Protocols For 13 Victorian Temperate Grassland Species |
| Meg Hirst | Preventing The Extinction Of Victoria’s Threatened Flora |
| Meg Hirst | Seed Morphology And Germination Characteristics Of The Root Parasitic Species Exocarpos |
| Meg Hirst | Viola Seed Biology And Ecology: Insights And Oddities |
| Tessa Coote | Germination Requirements Of Australian Temperate Saltmarsh Species |
| Susan Kachaniwsky | Fragmented Fields and Failing Flowers: Allee Effects in an Iconic Grassland Plant |
| Ohn Mar Aung | Assessment of Morphological Diversity Among Cucumber Germplasm of Myanmar |
| Gemma Hoyle | National Seed Bank’s Strategic Priorities, 2025-2035 |
| Freya Brown | Seed Banking Conservation Ladder: A Framework For Assessing ex Situ Conservation Knowledge Gaps. |
Award winners
For their excellent contributions to our conference, we’re pleased to award the following seed champions:
Candice Farrugia-Roberts
Best presentation (Student/Early-Mid Career Researcher or Practitioner)
Mitchell Korda
Best Poster (Overall)
Lauren Murfit
Best Poster (Student/Early-Mid Career Researcher or Practitioner)
Committees
Thank you to the following people who made this conference possible
Organising committee
- Dr Kathy Eyles: National Coordinator, Australian Seed Bank Partnership (Co-chair)
- Dr Sally Norton: National Leader, Australian Grains Genebank, Agriculture Victoria (Co-chair)
- Dr Katherine Baum: Research Scientist, Australian Grains Genebank, Agriculture Victoria
- Mr Bradley Desmond: Coordinator, Australian Seed Bank Partnership
- Dr Kioumars Ghamkhar: Director, Margot Forde Genebank
- Dr Megan Hirst: Research Scientist (Seed Ecology), Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
- Dr David Merritt: Principal Research Scientist, Kings Park Science, Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions
Program committee
- Dr Cassandra Walker: Senior Researcher, Agriculture Victoria (Chair)
- Chaminda Alahakoon: Western Sydney University
- Ms Pip Alvarez: Technical Officer, National Seed Bank, Australian National Botanic Gardens
- Mr Amrit B K: Agriculture Victoria
- Mr David Bush: Director, Australian Tree Seed Centre, CSIRO
- Dr Emma Dalziell: Research Fellow, University of Western Australia
- Dr Gemma Hoyle: Seed Scientist, National Seed Bank, Australian National Botanic Gardens
- Dr Marlien van der Merwe: Senior Research Scientist, Research Centre for Ecosystem Resilience, Botanic Gardens of Sydney
- Dr Catherine Offord: Head of Australian PlantBank Research, Senior Principal Research Scientist, Botanic Gardens of Sydney
- Ms Alex Thomsen: Botanic Gardens of Sydney
Conference highlights
Check out moments from the event
Conference supporters
The Conference Committees would like to thank the following sponsors for their generous support
Gold Partners
The Council of Heads of Australian Botanic Gardens Incorporated is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting the protection, conservation and enhancement of Australian plants and their ecosystems.
The Australian National Botanic Gardens is a place for recreation, inspiration, conservation, science and learning. The Gardens makes a substantial contribution to conservation of Australian native plants. We work with a range of partner organisations to conduct diverse research into Australian plants and ecosystems.
Bronze Partners
The Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) invests in world-class research, development and extension to drive enduring profitability and sustainability for Australian grain growers. Funded by grower levies and the Australian Government, GRDC supports innovation across 25 grain crops, delivering long-term benefits for growers, industry, and the wider community.
Other sponsors
The International Plant Phenotyping Network is sponsoring a conference workshop, the ‘Seed and gene bank management’ plenary theme, attendance for Keynote Speaker Dr Fiona Hay, and a tea break.
Angharad Dean is an Artist in Residence at the University of Tübingen in Germany. She has provided prints of her art as conference gifts.
Exhibitors
Conviron is the world leader in the design, manufacture and installation of controlled environments for plant science research. Conviron’s reach-in plant growth cabinets, walk-in rooms and Argus Control Systems (a Conviron sister company) provide precise, uniform, and repeatable control of temperature, light, humidity, CO2, and other environmental conditions. Applications include plant growth, entomology, tissue culture, germination and other research where tight environmental controls are required. Contact us at [email protected]
The Grains Research & Development Corporation (GRDC) invests in world-class research, development and extension to drive enduring profitability and sustainability for Australian grain growers. Funded by grower levies and the Australian Government, GRDC supports innovation across 25 grain crops, delivering long-term benefits for growers, industry, and the wider community.
Australian Seed Labs is an independently owned ISTA accredited laboratory and an Approved Arrangement Quarantine facility, specialising in the Purity, Germination, Tetrazolium, Vigour testing of forage, herbage, vegetable, flower and native seed species for both national and international certificates.
The Millennium Seed Bank, located at Wakehurst – the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew’s Wild Botanic Garden – currently stores over 2.5 billion seeds from more than 40,000 different plants species. This has been achieved through the united efforts of over 275 partner organisations in 100 countries and territories across the globe. The Millennium Seed Bank’s global network, is the largest ex situ wild plant conservation programme in the world. With an estimated two in five global plant species threatened with extinction, the seeds conserved in seed banks across the network are an insurance against the risk of extinction in their native habitat as well as a resource for research and restoration. This year will see the 25th anniversary of the MSB – celebrate with us, find out more about the work we do, and explore opportunities to overcome the biodiversity crisis through global collaboration.
Metrohm Australia is a leading provider of high-precision instruments for chemical analysis. We supply solutions for titration, ion chromatography, spectroscopy, and electrochemistry, supporting laboratories across industry, research, and academia. With a commitment to accuracy, reliability, and local expertise, we help our customers ensure quality and innovation in their work throughout Australia and New Zealand.