Smart Plant Improvement

Research Associate Richard Bennett

Research interests and expertise:
Abiotic and biotic screening in accelerated SSD breeding programs
Development of miniaturised and rapid screening systems for integration with aSSD breeding programs
Abiotic stress tolerance: acidity; aluminium; boron; salt; chilling; frost; herbicide
Biotic stress tolerance: mildews; rusts; aschochyta; botrytis; mosaic virus
Effect of light quality on plant development
Application of targeted wavelength LED lighting technology to modify plant behavior and development
Domestication of novel agricultural plants
Novel agricultural uses for locally adapted native plants
Domestication traits of wild plants, esp. legumes
Oil mallee growth and production systems
Water- and fertiliser-use efficiency in oil mallee plantations

This article on Hortibiz outlines some of our work with LED lighting and pulses!

For further details: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11240-016-1092-4

LED lamps drastically speed up flowering Faster flowering can result in significant savings and better profitability for plant breeders. Various conditions can affect the flowering speed, but the quality of the light spectrum is probably the most important. It is well known that the ratio of red:far red (R:FR) color from the light source,…

Smart Plant Improvements has been announced as the University of Western Australia's leading investigator in the 'Developing sustainable cropping systems for cotton, grains and fodder' project as part of the Developing Northern Australia CRC.

We look forward to strengthening our ties with the project collaborators and to continuing our innovative research in the superfoods Chia and Quinoa!

CRC for Developing Northern Australia Project Funding round outcomes CRC for Developing Northern Australia Project Funding round outcomes

Poster presented at ILCGG Conference, Hungary 2017. Contact us for more information!