Increasing wheat yield resilience to late season drought by targeting stay-green traits and root architecture
Abstract
Crop resilience is imperative to ensure food security in the face of increasing temperatures and reducing rainfall in many regions. Under late season drought, crops with a stay-green phenotype can remain green for longer after flowering. More roots at depth can contribute by increasing late, deep soil moisture uptake. High-throughput phenotyping methods were developed and used to study a specifically designed genetic mapping population which was also phenotyped in 22 field environments. Lines with adaptive stay-green and root traits were identified then provided to commercial Australian wheat breeders along with molecular markers to accelerate genetic progress toward improved crop resilience.
Dr Jack Christopher
With over 30 years in plant science research, Jack has focussed on improving crop resilience in the face of environmental stresses including, adaptation to frost, water-limitation, heat stress and optimising root architecture, particularly in wheat and barley.
After completing his PhD at the University of Adelaide, Jack moved to northern Australia to study plant adaptation to water stress at James Cook University, Townsville. In 2002 Jack joined the wheat improvement program at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Queensland at the Leslie Research Facility in Toowoomba, joining QAAFI as a founding research fellow in 2010.
Dr Jack Christopher, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Crop Science, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation E: j.christopher@uq.edu.au
For any questions, please contact the QAAFI Science Seminar Committee.
For any questions, please contact the QAAFI Science Seminar Committee.
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Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation hosts science seminars across the disciplines of animal, horticulture, crop, food and nutritional sciences.
With a range of speakers from Australia and abroad, the series explores how high-impact science will significantly improve the competitiveness and sustainability of the tropical and sub-tropical food, fibre and agribusiness sectors.
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The Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation is a research institute at The University of Queensland supported by the Queensland Government via the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
