Innovating Avocado - Aiming for sustainability from tissue-culture to genomes
Avocado (Persea americana Mill.) is a subtropical horticultural crop worth $770M annually to the Australian economy. The rising popularity of avocado has seen the industry grow 65% since 2003, with vast potential for continued expansion. To realise this potential requires research towards a sustainable and competitive supply chain. The QAAFI research lab has been working on a number of facets of avocado crop physiology and productivity. In this talk I will cover results from the major projects in the lab, all the way from development of our world-first tissue-culture propagation pipeline for avocado, to genome sequencing and the role of small RNAs in avocado development and root-rot disease response.
Alice completed her PhD at The University of Queensland in 2009, focusing on the hormonal and genetic regulation of plant branching. She has worked in both China and Australia on various plant species and projects and in 2014 she joined the lab of Prof Neena Mitter at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, UQ. Here she works as an Advance Queensland Research Fellow focused on molecular control of avocado rooting. With the Mitter Lab she has also drafted the first genome sequence for the Australian avocado cultivar Velvick and is helping to develop the worlds first high-multiplication tissue culture pipeline for avocado propagation.
About Science Seminars
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.
View Science Seminar pageSign up to receive QAAFI Science Seminar notifications
Email Science Seminar Committee
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.
