The Oil and Protein Seeds Development Trust and the Oilseeds Advisory Committee hosted a Sunflower Symposium on the 25 April at the CSIR international Convention Center. Dr Nicky Creux, research leader of the Crop Floral Biology and Environments (CFBE) team at FABI, was an invited speaker and presented on the sunflower's ability to adapt floral traits to heat stress. The CFBE Sunflower team was well represented at the meeting with two each PhD students (Nomfundo Shinga and Phrasia Mapfumo), MSc students (Vera Röder and Tshego Mbere) and BSc (Hons) students (Marcelle Booysens and Jessica Berry) in attendance. In a surprise announcement the Trust awarded the best publication award to Dr Nicky Creux for her work on the New Phytologist paper "Flower orientation influences floral temperature, pollinator visits and plant fitness". In this work the authors provide insight in to the biological relevance of a mature sunflower's easterly orientation and show that this orientation regulates the flowers microclimate to coordinate pollen emergence and pollinator visits.