When Duke molecular plant biologist Lucia Strader gathered regional academic, commercial and non-profit scientists on a Zoom call in summer 2022, her mission for the group was to seek funds to launch a climate-smart agriculture corridor in central North Carolina. The National Science Foundation grant that Strader hoped for didn’t pan out, but what had started as a loose association of like-minded scientists sharing ideas on a video call began to coalesce into a tight social group united in a common cause – to use plants to understand climate change.