The ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis seeks to develop and harness advances in photosynthesis research, crop bioengineering, plant phenomics and computational tools to realise increased and sustainable crop yields, opening new routes to achieving the next revolution in plant productivity. It aims to deliver improved yield by undertaking a continuum of fundamental and applied photosynthesis research and targeting projects with a high probability of producing increased yield.
A new boost to plant productivity is needed to feed the expected increase in world population and to provide world food security. Photosynthesis is one of the fundamental plant processes driving crop productivity. Improvements in photosynthesis are now widely recognised as the new frontier for increasing crop yields and this Centre seeks to harness new developments in photosynthesis research to achieve the next yield revolution.
The Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis is 7 year $22M collaboration between The Australian National University, the University of Queensland, CSIRO, the University of Sydney, the University of Western Sydney and the International Rice Research Institute. The centre seeks to develop and harness advances in photosynthesis research, crop bioengineering, plant phenomics and computational tools to realise increased and sustainable crop yields, opening new routes to achieving the next revolution in plant productivity. It will deliver improved yield by undertaking a continuum of fundamental and applied photosynthesis research and targeting projects with a high probability of producing increased yield. Links with national and international institutions, consortia and breeding companies will enhance the prospects of translating genetic improvements into crops such as wheat, rice and sorghum for improved yield.
The centre has four interlinked research programs
Researchers at Hermitage are focused on projects within Program 3: Exploiting photosynthetic variation (Program co-leaders –Furbank CSIRO, Jordan UQ).
The major outcomes for this research will be the Identification of diverse photosynthetic phenotypes and associated allelic variation in Sorghum, brachypodium and Oryza followed by the confirmation of improved plant performance and the identification of candidate genes and the translation of research results to commercial breeding programs.