University of Adelaide, Australian Plant Phenomics Network
Australia
Conviron’s controlled environment growth chambers operated by the Australian Plant Phenomics Network (APPN) provide stable environments where researchers can grow high quality plant material year-round to support gene editing innovations for the development of improved crop varieties.
Strategically located at the University of Adelaide's Waite Campus, The Plant Accelerator® is comprised of a 4,000 sqm purpose-built facility boasting state-of-the-art phenotyping platforms in controlled environments, whilst novel airborne and ground-based phenotyping systems are available for deployment.
Australian farmers and global food markets urgently require improved crops to achieve higher and more stable yields from farmland that is being challenged by heat, drought, salt and plant diseases. Along with resilience to growth constraints, crops with improved herbicide tolerance, water use efficiency and nitrogen use efficacy enable more productive farming methods. The delivery of improved crops is essential to ensuring future food security through more reliable and resilient crops, as well as more efficient and sustainable farming practices.
Growth chambers and growth rooms provided by Conviron allow APPF technicians to precisely control light, humidity, day length and light quality.
Cereal crops are a fundamental source of food for populations in Australia and around the world. Improved wheat and barley varieties will enable more productive and profitable farms, greater domestic and global food security, increased export earnings and substantial economic activity in regional Australia.
Gene editing can be used as an important tool to help introduce industry-important traits into cereal crops. However, high quality plant material, grown under accurately managed conditions, must be used as donor material to ensure the desired traits can successfully introduced into the desired donor lines.
By using customised growth chambers, Australian crop researchers are able to grow their plants under ideal conditions, which supports the efficiency of their genetic research and the development of transformative crops.
Associate Professor Stuart Roy of the University of Adelaide leads a team of researchers from the University of Adelaide and The ARC Training Centre for Accelerated Future Crops Development (funded by the Australian Research Council under its Industrial Transformation Training Centre Program). This team is utilising the controlled environment growth chambers at the APPF’s Adelaide node, The Plant Accelerator®, to grow quality wheat and barley material for gene editing and crop improvement.
We need research facilities that allow us to generate gene edited plants. We’re very fortunate on campus to have the growth environment conditions available though the Australian Plant Phenomics Network.
Stuart Roy, Associate Professor, University of Adelaide
Being able to utilise precise growing environments all year around is essential to the success of Associate Professor Roy’s project. As a result of proof-of-concept genetic modification and gene editing research already conducted on wheat and barley, his team have been able to guide the development of non-GMO pre-breeding material with important new agronomic traits. Once this material has undergone commercial breeding and trial programs, local farmers will be able to access advanced varieties that perform better under Australia’s unique and often challenging growing conditions.
Infrastructure at the APPF helps accelerate the development of improved crops that are more resiliant to environmental stresses.
Growth chambers and growth rooms provided by Conviron allow APPF technicians to precisely control light, humidity, day length and light quality. By doing so, researchers are able to grow plants accurately and consistently throughout the year, rather than being limited to a single growing season and the limitless variables of a field environment. By using customised growth chambers at APPF, Australian crop researchers are able to grow their wheat and barley plants under ideal conditions, which supports the efficiency of their genetic research and the development of transformative crops.
We are now achieving much better results with our gene constructs and transformations.
Chaoqun Shen, Research Fellow, University of Adelaide
Associate Professor Roy’s team have achieved much better results with their gene constructs and transformations, thanks to the superior quality and year-round reliability of plant material grown in APPF’s growth chambers. Access to this precise environment has been essential to their research success.
APPN’s nodes are strategically located across nine renowned Australian research organisations to offer a network of phenotyping solutions in controlled environments (greenhouse/growth room), at field sites or via mobile phenotyping units to reach regional areas, to help academic researchers and industry address the critical challenges in agriculture.
Learn more below about the Plant Accelerator at the University of Adelaide as well as Australia’s network of National Research Infrastructure for plant and agricultural science.
