It's time for another Q-Retreat - Welcome to Gie… Quiessen ?!

Between the 4th International Wheat Congress and the 5th International Legume Society Conference, the Australians stopped in Gießen and we all attended the Q-Retreat together. We started with a short pre-programme in Rauischholzhausen, where we visited our field station, learnt about our current field trials and admired the beautiful castle on Thursday. On Friday, we took a trip to the KWS Talent Campus, where we were inspired by the hands-on work of breeders and scientists, as well as their Phenofactory, which is slightly more high-tech than our DroughtSpotterXXL.

As always, the Q-Retreat started with a short recap by Ian and Rod, followed by a fun icebreaker and a keynote from Dr Damaris Odeny. Later, in an interesting panel discussion organised by Joshua Okoye and Zsa Zsa Boyny about publication experiences, the PhD students had the opportunity to ask their supervisors how they manage to write their papers. In the evening, we played a fun round of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire', with tricky questions such as 'What is Kai's favourite animal?' and 'What is Andreas's favourite dinosaur?'. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the ACGG mini-conference took place. This was organised by Claire Ferreira, Daniel Valle Torres, Anika Unger, Joshua Okoye and Rica-Hanna Schlichtermann. Here, PhD students, postdoctoral researchers and professors presented their current work to inspire students to connect with each other over similar topics and generate new ideas for cooperation between different institutions. In the evening, we either met the president of the JLU, Prof. Katharina Lorenz, or met for a nice conference dinner with the winners of the best talk, Kevin Rockenbach, and the best poster, Anika Unger. On Thursday, a public holiday in Germany, they met on a bus on the way to Geisenheim, where they enjoyed some wine while walking through the beautiful Rheingau vineyards. On Friday morning, everyone finally sat down to start working on the mystical midterm report for the IRTG (dramatic music optional), in the hope that the IRTG will continue into another round so that new PhD students can experience the programme and all that it offers, including new friendships, exchange opportunities and, of course, science.

We are looking forward to seeing what UQ is organising in February, so get your passports ready! But until then, enjoy the photos from this event!