Plant Science
Professor Rachel Burton
Head of the Department of Plant Science
Science solutions to major crop and horticultural challenges.
In collaboration with industry, plant-breeding programs in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine have produced more than half of the commercially grown grain varieties in southern Australia.
Our research delivers outcomes of direct significance to both the Australian and global agricultural, food and wine industries.
We achieve this by collaborating across various sciences including molecular genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, epigenetics, metabolomics, phenomics, molecular biology, cell biology, physiology, and biophysics.
Research strengths
Plant biology and biochemistry
Plant biology and biochemistry are major research strengths in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine. Research areas include plant and cell physiology, membrane transport, plant energy biology, plant reproductive biology, plant cell wall biology and biochemistry, glycoscience and cereal chemistry.
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Lead researchers
Researcher Focus area Prof Amanda Able Post-harvest physiology Dr Bettina Berger Plant phenomics, salinity tolerance Dr Natalie Betts Cereal grain physiology and molecular biology Dr Jay Bose Biophysics of plant membrane transport and signalling Prof Vincent Bulone Plant and fungal cell wall carbohydrate structure and biosynthesis Prof Rachel Burton Plant cell walls, grains for health, biofuels Dr Helen Collins Cereal grain physiology and biochemistry A/Prof Christopher Ford Organic acid metabolism Prof Matthew Gilliham Transport and signalling; nutrition and stress tolerance (salinity) Dr Sunita Ramesh Molecular biology of membrane transport and signalling Dr Megan Shelden Root biology, abiotic stress tolerance A/Prof Matthew Tucker Cereal reproductive biology Prof Stephen Tyerman Plant physiology, solute and water transport, signaling Dr M Obayed Ullah Protein biochemistry and structural biology Dr Stefanie Wege Nutrient and anion transport, plant physiology and molecular biology Prof Dabing Zhang Cereal reproductive biology -
Related research groups and centres
Plant genetics, genomics and breeding
Analysis of the genetic and epigenetic control of economically important traits (abiotic stress, biotic stress, productivity, end-use quality) leads to understanding of causes of observed variation in plants and to the development of tools and technologies that can be used in crop improvement.
We develop improved germplasm, breeding methods and breeding technologies. We develop new varieties of durum wheat, faba bean, almond and ornamental eucalypts.
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Lead researchers
Researcher Focus areas A/Prof Jason Able Durum breeding, plant epigenetics, barley quality, frost tolerance in cereals; molecular genetics, industry relations Prof Rachel Burton Plant cell walls, grains for health, biofuels A/Prof Kenneth Chalmers Molecular genetics for cereal breeding Dr Nicholas Collins Heat tolerance in cereals Dr Kate Delaporte Ornamental eucalypt breeding Dr Ian Dundas Alien introgression, cereal cytogenetics and chromosome engineering Dr Delphine Fleury Drought tolerance in cereals Prof Diane Mather Molecular genetics for plant breeding Dr Jeffrey Paull Faba bean breeding Dr Stuart Roy Salinity tolerance in crops Dr Ryan Whitford Reproductive biology and genome editing Dr Michelle Wirthensohn Almond breeding Prof Dabing Zhang Cereal reproductive biology -
Related research groups and centres
Viticulture and horticulture
Our research in viticulture addresses the growth and management of grapevines and berries including physiology, nutrition, water relations, stress tolerance and chemistry. Research and development of new vineyard technologies is also a priority.
Our horticultural research involves the breeding of new varieties of almond and ornamental eucalypts, and insect pollination of horticultural crops.
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Lead researchers
Researcher Focus area Prof Amanda Able Post-harvest physiology A/Prof Timothy Cavagnaro Soil ecology A/Prof Cassandra Collins Vineyard management; grapevine reproductive biology Dr Kate Delaporte Ornamental eucalypts A/Prof Christopher Ford Organic acid metabolism in grapevines Prof Matthew Gilliham Transport and signalling; nutrition and stress tolerance (salinity) Dr Katja Hogendoorn Pollination of horticultural crops Dr Vinay Pagay Grapevine ecophysiology and vineyard technology Prof Eileen Scott Grapevine pathology Prof Stephen Tyerman Plant physiology, solute and water transport, signaling A/Prof Kerry Wilkinson Grape and grapevine chemistry Dr Michelle Wirthensohn Almond breeding -
Related research groups and centres
Crop bioinformatics
Technological and data driven approaches have become the cornerstone of modern biology. Bioinformatics is an interdisciplinary science with the focus on developing and applying computationally intensive methods to solve formal and practical problems arising from the management and analysis of biological ‘big data’. This requires a new breed of researchers that can work effectively in multidisciplinary teams.
With such a team of researchers from across the intersections of molecular biology, plant breading, genetics, biochemistry, computer science, mathematics, and statistics we specialise in agricultural crop bioinformatics.
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Lead researchers
Researcher Focus area Dr Ute Baumann genomics, transcriptomics, phylogenetics, in silico experiments Mr Paul Eckermann experimental design, linkage maps, QTL analysis, GWAS Dr Melissa de Oliveira Santos Garcia plant genetics, genomics and breeding Dr Elena Kalashyan algorithms, software development, databases, websites, high-performance computing Mr Juan Carlos Sanchez sequence analysis, protein structure, phylogenetics, bioinformatics training Dr Julian Schwerdt protein family evolution, coevolution networks and biological applications for machine learning Dr Neil Shirley identification and expression patterns of cell wall genes Dr Nathan Watson-Haigh genomics, transcriptomics, systems biology, phylogenetics, bioinformatics training, pipeline development, high-performance and cloud computing