Primary Supervisor: Dr Geetika Geetika, Prof David Jordan, Prof Emma Mace | g.geetika@uq.edu.au
Duration: 20-36 hours/week; onsite
Drought induced lodging in sorghum continues to be one of the major issues for growers in Australia. Stalk lodging in sorghum occurs under drought stress due to remobilisation of stem reserves from the stem, causing the stem to weaken and fall over. Direct selection for lodging resistance difficult due to the negative association between lodging resistance and yield gain. Hence there is a need to focus on the non-remobilisation component of lodging. This project focuses on identifying use of surrogates such as strength of peduncle to predict the strength of basal stem in sorghum.
Expected outcomes: Student will gain skills in conducting field experiments, data collection and analysis, and be involved in field sampling tasks. Students will have the opportunity to participate in research publications and develop their scientific communication skills through presentations at weekly science discussion meetings.
Suitability: This project is open for application from students with a background in agronomy or crop physiology or ecophysiology.
