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In November 1998, a group of scientists met in Palo Alto, California, at an NSF-sponsored workshop to discuss the grand challenges facing biology at that time. Their primary aim was to identify areas in which plant science could provide important and lasting contributions to addressing these challenges. A key recommendation from their report was to focus sufficient resources on the reference plant Arabidopsis to be able to exploit fully its soon to be completed genome sequence. Nine years later, as we near completion of the 2010 program, it is appropriate to step back, assess progress and once again ask how plants can contribute to addressing the grand challenges in biology. What is crystal clear is that there are a host of real-world problems that involve plants: escalating pressures for food, the need for renewable biofuels, and habitat preservation are being driven by the demands of an ever growing and ever more prosperous human population. The ability to face these challenges is dependent on a fundamental understanding of the basic biology and ecology of plants. NSF-funded plant biology research in the past decade has provided the foundations for solving some of these pressing problems. By identifying the next set of grand challenges in biology, and how they can best be met by plant research, we will be preparing for the unforeseen problems of tomorrow. For this purpose, a workshop was held on 3–5 January 2008 in Arlington, VA, that focused on the future directions for plant research, with special emphasis on the role of the reference species Arabidopsis in uncovering fundamental biological principles that will enable us to face …